JONNAVARAM BALIREDDI Vs. KHATIPULAL SAB ALIAS ABDUL SATAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The suit has been brought by the plaintiff for the setting aside of certain mortgage deeds and sale-deeds executed by his father and for possession of the immoveable properties covered by them. Section 7(iv-A) introduced into the Court-Fees Act by the Madras Amendment reads thus: In a suit for cancellation of a decree for money or other property having a money value, or other document securing money or other property having such value, according to the value of the subject-matter of the suit, and such value shall be deemed to be if the whole decree or other document is sought to be cancelled, the amount or the value of the property for which the decree was passed, or the other document executed, if a part of the decree or other. document is sought to be cancelled, such part of the amount or value of the property.

(2.) The plaintiff prays, in the words of this section, for the cancellation of documents securing money or other property having money value. Mortgage instruments answer the description of documents securing money; so far as sale-deeds are concerned, they are, as I have held in Doraiswami V/s. Thangavelu A.I.R. 1929 Mad. 668, documents securing "other property" within the meaning of the section. This is what I observed in that case: The words securing money or other property " are not happy; but the question is : Is this or not a suit for cancellation of a document securing property having money value? I think it clearly is. I have no doubt the release deed in question is a document securing property; in other words, by that document, the property covered by it is made secure to the defendants. Can there be any doubt that a sale-deed comes within the terms of this section? The present instrument does not materially differ from a sale-deed. By that, the rights of the plaintiffs in the partnership and its property have been transferred for consideration to the defendants. The word "secure" may mean according to the Oxford Dictionary, "to make the tenure of a property secure to a person." I am therefore, of the opinion that the proper section applicable is Section 7(iv-A).

(3.) The amount of court-fee payable depends upon "the value of the subject-matter of the suit"-that is what the section says. Where a document securing money is sought to be cancelled, the section goes on to say, that the value of the subject-matter shall be deemed to be " the amount for which the document is executed." In the case of a mortgage instrument therefore, the court-fee has to be computed on the amount for which the instrument is executed, in other words, the principal amount secured by it. This is the plain effect of the words of the section, and I fail to see how the method of computation fixed in Section 7(v) can possibly be applied.