Seethalakshmi Ammal vs T.S. Ramachandran and Another

Basheer Ahmed Sayeed, J.—This application is for the relief of amending paragraph 11 of the plaint in O.S. No. 488 of 1951 on the file of

the City Civil Court, Madras, by substituting the words ""the plaintiff values the relief for account at Rs. 100 u/s 7, Clause 4 (iv)(b) of the Court-

Fees Act."" This application is resisted on the ground that the point is covered by the decision in S.R.M. AR. S. SP. Sathappan Chettiar Vs.

S.R.M.R.M. Ramanathan Chettiar, . The question is whether this decision governs the facts of the present case. In the case cited above, no

valuation was given for the purpose of Court-fee in the plaint. But contrary to that, in the case under review, the plaintiff gave valuation both for the

purpose of jurisdiction as also for Court-fees. Besides this, he was also permitted in the lower Court to amend his plaint by inserting a further

clause for relief for accounting between t he parties. At that time under some misapprehension, he did not also state as to the value of the relief he

claimed for the accounting for the purpose of Court-fees. After the suit went against him and in appeal stage, he is aggrieved that relief even for the

accounting has not been given to him. For that purpose he seeks to fix the valuation of the relief for accounting for the purpose of Court-fees at a

sum of Rs. 100 for purposes of the appeal. This is being objected to by the Government Pleader on the ground that in view of the decision referred

to above, it is not permissible to do so.

Nothing could have prevented the petitioner in having inserted an arbitrary valuation for the purpose of Court-fee in respect of his relief for

accounting between the parties, when he was permitted to amend the plaint to include the relief for accounting. In the decision now under

consideration which is relied upon by the Government Pleader the question, as to whether the plaintiff, who has once valued the relief claimed by

him or deemed to have valued the claim for the purpose of Court-fees u/s 7(iv)(b) of the Court-Fees Act, has no right to change that valuation at

any stage even by amendment of the plaint, has not been finally decided.

On the facts of this case, I do not think that the plaintiff should be put to the hardship of paying the Court-fee on the amount which he has fixed

for the purpose of jurisdiction. He could not have intended that for a mere relief of accounting, the Court-fee should be on the basis of the same

value as he had fixed for the purpose of jurisdiction in respect of other reliefs. After all it is just possible that when he gets any relief for accounting,

he would have to pay Court-fee on the basis of the value of money that he might get under any decree that might be passed. That being the case,

and the question itself having been left open in the decision relied upon by the Government Pleader, I think justice of the case requires that the

plaintiff-petitioner should be allowed to amend the Court-fees also even as he has been allowed to amend the plaint in the lower Court for

purposes of relief by inserting the substitution which he had prayed for. This petition is, therefore, allowed but in the circumstances without costs.