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Judgment
Balakrishna Ayyar, J.—The Subordinate Judge of the Nilgiris at Ootacamund, is the Controller for that area, appointed under the Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act of 1949. The petitioner filed two applications before the Subordinate Judge and Rent Controller u/s 7(2) of the Act, to evict certain tenants from the premises of which they were in occupation. On each of those applications, the petitioner affixed a Court-fee stamp of the value of Re. 1. The Subordinate Judge directed him to pay a Court-fee of Rs. 5 on each application. The petitioner contends that this demand is not in accordance with law and has come to this Court in revision.
Applications of the kind which the petitioner filed before the Rent Controller, the Nilgiris, can be brought only under one or other of the following three categories in Schedule II to Madras Act XIV of 1955:
(1) Article 10(k) which runs as follows:
(2) Article 11(g) which runs:
(3) Article 11(l) which runs as follows:
(l) Original petitions not otherwise provided for when filed in-
The last item may be at once eliminated because the petitioner presented these applications in the Court of the Subordinate Judge, Ootacamund, not because he was the Subordinate Judge of the place but because he was the Rent Controller. Therefore, the provisions of the Schedule properly applicable to Courts of District Munsifs, Subordinate Judge and District Judges are not applicable in the present instance. Under the Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, Government can appoint any person to perform the functions of a Controller under the Act. The person so appointed may be a Tahsildar, he may be a District Munsif or he may be a Revenue Divisional Officer. In fact he may be anybody. Therefore, the Court-fee payable on applications presented under the Rent Control Act cannot 1 be determined with reference to the office which the officer on whom the power has been conferred holds. If the view of the learned Subordinate Judge were right he should have called for a Court-fee of Rs. 10. That he did not do and this involves an inconsistency. It is possible to argue that the present case comes under Article 11(g). But then it is to be doubted whether the Rent Controller can be regarded as a Court within the meaning of that Article. If that also is eliminated, we are left only with Article 10(k) under which the Court-fee payable is only Re. 1. The Court-fee paid by the petitioner is therefore correct and sufficient.
The revision petition, is therefore, allowed. No costs.