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Judgment
Two points have been taken with reference to, the Court-fee stamp payable in this case.
It is said that the subject-matter in dispute is one, the money value of which it is not possible to estimate, and it is said that the decree for which
the plaintiff asks is a declaratory decree only without any consequential relief.
On this latter point, we are referred to a case in Karam Khan v. Daryai Singh in which it seems to have been ruled that a suit like the present for
the cancellation of a document is a suit for a declaration and not a suit in which substantive relief is asked for. The report of the case is extremely
brief, but, if it was intended to hold that the law, as understood before the Specific Relief Act came into force, was altered, by Section 39 of that
Act, we are unable to agree with the decision.
On the other question, as to the possibility of valuing the subject-matter, there are several cases of this Court deciding that a valuation is possible
(Naraina Putter v. Aya Putter 1 and Parathayi v. Sankumani ) The only question is which provsion of the Act applies to the case., We think
Section 7, Clause iv(c) must be taken to apply. The case is, therefore, one in which the valuation given by the plaintiff is the valuation to be
accepted. It is suggested that in the 7th defendant''s appeal he may depart from that valuation, although the subject-matter is identical. This
construction of the Act would lead to such anomalies that we are unable to accept it. The reference to appeal in the last paragraph but one of the
Sub-section may well apply to the case, in which the subject of the appeal is not coextensive with the subject-matter of the suit, in which case it
would be unjust that the party appealing should be bound by the original valuation.
In the present case the plaintiff valued the subject-matter at Rs. 800 and we direct the Court-fee stamp to be paid accordingly on or before
Monday next.