L BASANT LAL Vs. LALTA PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal under the Court-fees Act against a decision of the learned District Judge of Agra. The proceedings arose out of a mortgage of 1894 under which in due course the mortgagor brought redemption proceedings under Section 12, U.P. Agriculturists Relief Act. The Court under that Act held that the entire principal had been paid off out of the rents and profits of the property - the mortgage, of course, being a usufructuary mortgage. The original amount of the principal secured by the mortgage had been three thousand and two hundred rupees.

(2.) Against this decision the mortgagee appealed by a memorandum of appeal dated 26 March 1943, and it is relevant for the purpose of what follows to see exactly what it was that he claimed in his appeal. In the memorandum of appeal he alleged that for sundry reasons the decision of the Munsif under Section 12, Agriculturists Relief Act, had been wrong and he finally made this prayer which we will set out verbatim: To decree the appeal and modify the decree of the lower Court at least by two hundred rupees, the least amount which even according to the respondent's own account (appears) to be the mortgage money still due to the appellant.

(3.) It is, therefore, quite clear that the appellant, probably quite deliberately, avoided setting out any exact sum which he said was due to him on redemption but preferred to put it in the form that a Certain minimum sum was due to him, without, of course, limiting the maximum which might turn out to be payable to him. And this becomes still more clear when one looks at the way in which he has valued his appeal. He has valued it on the minimum sum of two hundred rupees referred to above and says that this is tentative, and he offers to make up the court-fee to any extent that may ultimately be found necessary having regard to what he is awarded. Now, to our minds this does not amount to a valuation at all. When a thing is to be valued, as we understand it, that means that a certain value has to be put on it and by no stretch of imagination can it be said that when a man asserts that a minimum of so much is due to him but that any amount more may be ultimately turn out to be his, that is a valuation at all. Now, turning to the Court-fee a Act which governs this matter, we find that there is a special provision in it which deals with appeals under Section 23, United Provinces Agriculturists Relief Act. That is the section under which the appeal was brought in the Court below. It is to be found in Schedule 1, Art. 2(b), Court-fees Act, 1870. It says this: 2 (b) Memorandum of appeal filed under Section 23, United Provinces Agriculturists Belief Act, 1943...the same fee as would be leviable on a memorandum of appeal under Art. 1.