1. Heard.

2. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith.

3. Heard finally by consent.

4. The petition has been filed to claim exemption from the payment of Court fees by relying upon the relief given by the State of Maharashtra in its notification, bearing No. STP 1094/CR859/ M1, dated 1st October, 1994. This notification prescribes that the Government shall remit the fees payable by women litigants on any of the motions such as plaint, application, petition, memorandum of appeal and so on and such remission is also permissible on the documents specified in Ist and IInd Schedule to the Bombay Court Fees Act, 1959, which are to be filed in any Civil, Family or Criminal Courts in respect of four categories of cases, namely, (i) maintenance, (ii) property disputes, (iii) violations & (iv) divorce.

5. It seems that the Government gave a rethink to one particular category of cases termed as “property disputes”. Although the reasons for revisiting this expression have not been brought on record, the fact remains that by a later notification bearing No.530/2000/673/CR199/ M1, issued on 23rd March, 2000, Government clarified the expression by laying down that by the expression “property disputes” it shall mean the disputes arising out of and concerning matrimonial matters. After this clarification, there was a spate of litigation raising claims and counterclaims about what exactly is conveyed by this clarification. The Division Bench of this Court in the case of Girish Kanaiyalal Munshi (Deceased), Petition (L) No. 118/2007, reported in 2008 (4) ALL MR 306 bestowed its thoughtful consideration to these claims and counterclaims and explained the meaning of the clarification issued by the State of Maharashtra in the year 2000.

6. In the aforestated case, the application had been filed by the woman for issuance of Probate of the Will of her deceased husband. The Division Bench held that such an application would not be covered by 1994 notification as the clarification issued in the year 2000 made it clear that it is only those property disputes which arise out of and which concern matrimonial matters which enjoy such remission. In the opinion of the Division Bench, an application filed for issuance of Probate of deceased husband's Will is not a dispute concerning matrimonial matter. The observations of the Division Bench made in paragraph 26 are relevant and they are reproduced as under :

“(C) Furthermore it is pertinent to differentiate between matrimonial matters and matrimonial relationship as the two terms are not synonymous and hence the term 'matrimonial matters' arising in the Notification of 23/03/2000 cannot be replaced by 'matrimonial relationship' so as to bring a petition filed by a widow for probate of her deceased husband's Will, within the ambit of the Notification.

(D) Lastly, the words, 'property dispute arising out of or concerning matrimonial matters' should be given their plain and simple meaning, that is, a dispute arising between parties to a marriage, (attention may be brought to the reference made by Deshmukh, J. to the Family Courts Act Subsection 1 Section 7, to elucidate the meaning of the term 'matrimonial matters') and should therefore exclude testamentary petitions wherein not only is there an absence of a dispute, other than in cases when somebody files a caveat, it is not a matter between two parties to a marriage.”

7. In the case of Harsha Pradeep Patil vs. Sayankabai Ragho Patil, reported in 2017(1) Bom. CR 86, learned Single Judge of this Court while deciding the similar issue held that a suit filed by the widow against her brother-in-law seeking partition of property in which her husband was a coparcener is not covered by 1994 Notification in view of the clarification later on given by the Government. Similar are the judgments rendered by several other Benches of this Court presided over by respective learned Single Judges.

8. However, there is one departure made by learned Single Judge of this Court in the