Declaration with consequential injunctions attracted ad valorem court-fee; split valuation could not override the composite nature of the plaint.

Declaratory reliefs that a plaintiff was president of the institution and that certain resolutions were void were treated as the principal reliefs, and the injunctions restraining defendants from acting on those resolutions, functioning as president, or interfering with the plaintiff flowed consequentially from those declarations. The plaint was therefore treated as one composite claim for declaration with consequential injunctions, so the plaintiff's split valuation could not control the court-fee. The proviso relating to immovable property did not apply because the suit did not directly and expressly seek relief with reference to immovable property, and the court-fee valuation had to match the jurisdictional valuation.

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Issues: Whether the injunctions claimed in the suit were consequential to the declaratory reliefs so as to attract ad valorem court-fee under Section 7(iv)(a) of the Court-fees Act, and whether the proviso relating to immovable property or a separate valuation of the injunction reliefs displaced that conclusion.

Analysis: The declaratory reliefs that the plaintiff was president of the institution and that certain resolutions were void formed the principal reliefs. The injunctions sought to restrain the defendants from acting on those resolutions, from functioning as president, and from interfering with the plaintiff's functioning. These injunctions could arise only if the declarations succeeded and therefore necessarily flowed from them. The Court held that the real nature of the plaint was one composite relief of declaration with consequential injunctions, and that the manner in which the plaintiff split the reliefs could not control the fee payable. The proviso relating to immovable property did not apply because the suit did not directly and expressly seek relief with reference to immovable property. Since the plaintiff had also valued the suit for jurisdiction at the same aggregate figure, the valuation for court-fee was required to follow the same amount.

Conclusion: The reliefs were consequential and the plaintiff was liable to pay ad valorem court-fee on the total valuation of Rs. 5100; the appeal failed.

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