The State Legislature has the power to prescribe court fees in respect of proceedings taken in the High Court, and the Andhra Court-Fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1956, validly prescribed a court fee of Rs. 100 for a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

ORDER :

SUBBA RAO, C.J.:— This reference raises the question of the Court-fee payable on a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for issuing a writ of mandamus directing the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal to entertain the application filed by the petitioner and to dispose it of according to law.

2. The Income-Tax Appellate Tribunal is now situated in the City of Hyderabad. The taxing officer expressed the opinion that the Court-fee payable on the said application is Rs. 100 under Article 11(s) of Schedule II of the Andhra Court-Fees and Suits Valuation Act, VII of 1956 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). Learned counsel for the applicant contends that the Court fee payable is Rs. 2 under serial No. 1(d) of Schedule II of the Hyderabad Court Fees Act. Before adverting to the argument, we shall briefly notice the nature of writ proceedings so far as is material to the question raised before us.

3. It is settled law, though the learned counsel for the petitioner does not accept it, that the High Court was issuing writs in the nature of mandamus prohibition, quo warranto and certiorari in exercise of its extraordinary original jurisdiction. If authority is required for the said proposition it is found in Venkataratnam v. The Secretary of State for India in Council1, where the learned Judges held, on a consideration of the history of writs, that High Courts in India possess the same jurisdiction to issue writs as the Court of King's Bench in England. Venkatasubba Rao, J., at page 999, administered a caution against jurisdiction to issue writs being confused with that of the original jurisdiction of the High Court. The learned Judge says:

“I must guard myself against being understood that the term ‘original jurisdiction’ in this context connotes that the writ cannot be issued outside the limits of the city. This is not the sense in which that expression is used. The jurisdiction in the exercise of which the writ is granted is original, as contrasted with appellate. This jurisdiction termed ‘original’ is not to be confused with ‘original civil jurisdiction,’ mentioned in section 12 of the Letters Patent. The last mentioned jurisdiction can be exercised, by its very nature, within certain local limits. But the jurisdiction possessed by the High Court in the matter of certiorari is supervisory or corrective and on the English analogy, extends over all inferior tribunals amenable to its authority.”

4. The Judgment of Govinda Menon and Ramaswami Gounder, JJ., in Ramayya v. State of Madras1, did not express a view different from that of the earlier Division Bench. Therein the learned Judges were only considering the question whether an appeal lay against an order of a single Judge dismissing an application for the issue of a writ of certiorari. In that context, they held that the matter involved in the appeal before them was an original civil proceeding and not a criminal proceeding. The learned Judges did not hold that it was an original proceeding in the sense that it was confined only to the limits of the ordinary original jurisdiction of the High Court. Article 226 of the Constitution conferred express power on the High Court to issue the writs mentioned therein throughout the territories in relation to which it exercises jurisdiction. The territorial limits of the jurisdiction of the High Court extends throughout the State of Andhra Pradesh and, therefore, the jurisdiction of the High Court under that Article may be conveniently described as extraordinary original jurisdiction as distinguished from the ordinary original civil jurisdiction of a High Court. The High Court of Andhra Pradesh, therefore, in the exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 226, can issue writs against tribunals situated or persons resident in any part of the State of Andhra Pradesh. We are in this case concerned only with a writ against a Tribunal situated in the Telegana area which, though now a part of the State of Andhra Pradesh, was til