AI Drafter 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1973 (8) TMI 173
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.... court-fee is paid on a plaint is primarily a question between the plaintiff and the State and that the defendants who may believe and even honestly that proper court-fee has not been paid by the plaintiff has still no right to move the superior courts by appeal or in revision against the order adjudging payment of court-fee payable on the plaint. But the observations must be understood in the background of the facts of that case. This Court was there dealing with an application for revision filed before the High Court under s. 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure and pointed out that the jurisdiction in revision exercised by the High Court is strictly conditioned by clauses (a) to (c) thereof and may be invoked on the ground of refusal to ex....
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.... in the preliminary objection. As regards the main question that arises for decision it appears to us that while the court-fee payable on a plaint is certainly to be decided on the basis of the allegations and the prayer in the plaint and the question whether the plaintiff's suit will have to fail for failure to ask for consequential relief is of no concern to the court at that stage the court in deciding the question of court-fee should look into the allegations in the plaint to see what is the substantive relief that is asked for Mere astuteness in drafting the plaint will not be allowed to stand in the way of the court looking at the substance of the relief asked for. In this case the relief asked for is on the basis that the propert....
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.... the relief so disclosed is a declaration pure and simple and involves no other relief, the suit would fall under Art. 17(iii)." In that case the plaintiff had sued for a twofold declaration : (i) that the property described in the plaint was a waqf, and (ii) that certain alienations thereof by the mutwalli and his brother were null and void and were ineffectual against the waqf property. It was held that the second part of the declaration was tantamount to the setting aside or cancellation of the alienations and therefore the relief claimed could not be treated as a purely declaratory one and inasmuch as it could not be said to follow directly from the declaration sought for in the first part of the relief, the relief claimed in the cas....
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....dinarily include any such consequential relief. But there are exceptional cases in which the plaintiff though not a party to the deed or the decree is nevertheless bound thereby. For instance, when a sale or mortgage of joint family property is effected by a manager of a joint Hindu family, the alienation is binding on the other members of the family (even if they are not parties to it) until and unless it is set aside. Similarly, a decree passed against the manager will be binding on the other members of the If therefore a copartner sues for a declaration that such an alienation or decree is null and void, the declaration must I think be held to include consequential relief in the same may as in those cases in which the plaintiff is him....
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....ect his interests in the family property, consequential relief is involved and ad valorem court fee would be necessary. We should now refer to certain decisions relied upon by the respondents. We do not consider that the decision of the learned Single Judge of the Madras High Court in Venkata Ramani v. Mravanaswami(A.I.R. 1925) lays down the correct law. It proceeds on the basis that the plaintiffs not being parties to the document they were not bound to get rid of it by having it actually cancelled, but it ignores the effect of Hindu Law in respect of a mortgage decree obtained against the father. As pointed out by the Lahore High Court, in such cases in suing for declaration that the decree is not binding on him the son is really asking f....