DANTULURI VENKATANARASIMHA RAJU Vs. DANTULURI CHANDRAYYA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The office has now submitted its report and, according to it, the appeal should be valued so far as it seeks to set aside the decree in O.S. No. 46 of 1908 at Rs. 337,391 and the Court- fee on it is Rs. 3,502-7-0. This value is arrived at excluding the moveable property in the suit as no relief is asked with reference to it but calculating the value of the immoveable property under Section 7(v)(b) at ten times the revenue. It is clear that the appellants are asking for the decree to be set aside and the subject-matter of that decree so sought to be set aside is the whole of the immoveable property in that suit.

(2.) One point raised is whether the market value of the property should not be taken for the purpose of this valuation or whether the statutory value should be adopted. We think the latter is the proper course as there is nothing in the Act to show that the market value is the value contemplated in Section 7(iv)(a). When there is in the Act itself a special rule as to valuing the property in suits for Court-fees, we think it is proper to take that method of valuation in preference to any method to get the value where there is no indication that any other method should be adopted.

(3.) It was also argued that as the present claim is by a reversioner who is not concerned to have the decree set aside so long as the widow lives, it should be treated as a claim to set aside a part of the decree only and not the whole of it and that as the exact value of the widow's life interest cannot properly be estimated 17 (b) of the Second Schedule should be applied to the case and not Section 7(iv)(a). We are unable to agree with this contention. The decree cannot be. treated as consisting of separate and independent parts with reference to the widow and the reversioner. Appellants were parties to the decree and it is binding on them so long as it subsists. Whether it be at once or after the widow's death that the cancellation of the decree will enure to their advantage, it is the whole decree they must get cancelled if they want such a relief and not a part of it. It seems therefore that they must pay an additional stamp duty of Rs. 3,302-7-0 on this appeal memo and we direct them to pay . that amount in one month from this date.