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Judgment
Maclean, C.J.—This is an application for certificate that this case is a fit and proper one for leave to appeal to His Majesty in Council. The only question we really have to decide is whether the decree appealed against affirms the decision of the Court immediately below.
The facts of the case are these :--
The case is a Land Acquisition one in which the present applicant claimed a sum of Rs. 77,000, add as the value of the land taken. The Collector assessed the value at Rs. 28,28.7. The Petitioner was dissatisfied, and the Collector referred the matters to the Judge of the 24-Pergunnahs, who after a careful enquiry, upheld the Collector''s award. The present applicant then appealed to this Court valuing the appeal at Rs. 49,000 odd being the difference between the Collector''s award and the amount claimed. This Court on the 13th August 1903 partially decreed the appeal by giving the Petitioner an additional sum of about Rs. 7,000. The applicant is dissatisfied with that decision, and he asks for leave to appeal to the Privy Council in respect of the difference between that sum and the sum which he originally claimed. The question is whether, under these circumstances, the decree appealed against affirmed the decision of the Court below. No doubt, in one sense it may be said that this Court did not affirm the decision of the Court below, because it gave the Petitioner an additional Rs. 7,000. But we must look to the substance of the case. What is the decree from which the present applicant now desires to appeal to the Privy Council He desires to appeal only against the decision of this Court so far as it affirmed the decision of the Court below: nothing else. This seems to be, in substance, as far as the subject matter of appeal goes a decree of affirmance. If the decree of this Court had been properly drawn, it would have dismissed the appeal, except to the extent that the additional sum was given.
In other words whilst the decree of this Court modified in the Petitioners'' favour the original decree, as regards the subject-matter of the, proposed present appeal to His Majesty in Council it most certainly affirmed the decree of the first Court. No question of law is involved. The application is refused with costs, 5 gold mohurs.