Eligibility for legal aid, including court-fees remission, is determined by the Statutory Committee under the Legal Aid Act, and no court can grant exemption from court-fee payment without the eligibility certificate obtained under the Legal Aid Act being filed.

1. We have heard Mr. Devi Prasad learned Counsel for the appellant and the learned State Counsel in respect of granting exemption to the petitioner from filing of the court-fee in this case.

2. The petitioner has filed an application seeking exemption from payment of court-fee on the basis of the notification No. S. O. 1207 dated 19th August, 1981 on the ground that she being of Scheduled Caste was entitled to get legal aid. At this very stage we may notice that the notification referred to by the appellant stands superseded by subsequent notification dated 31st October, 1983 which is also to the same effect. But since by that time the Bihar State Weaker Section Legal Aid Act, 1983 had come into force, (hereinafter referred to as the Legal Aid Act only), the notification provided that only such persons will be entitled to remission of court-fee who are receiving legal aid in accordance with Sec. 17 of the Legal Aid Act.

3. In the case of Chanda Nath V/s. Janak Kishore Devi reported in 1992 (1) PLJR 760 keeping in view the object and intendment behind issuance of the said notification and the various provisions of the Legal Aid Act it has been held that:

-----the eligibility of a person claiming legal aid including that in respect of court-fees, has to be examined, ascertained and determined by the Statutory Committee constituted under the said Act in accordance with the procedure laid down thereunder. This jurisdiction cannot be exercised by the Civil Court. Once a person is found to be entitled to legal aid under the said Act and he is so granted, he, as a matter of right, becomes entitled to get remission from payment of court-fees pursuant to the notification issued under Section 35 of the Court-Fees Act, as referred to above. It was only for this reason that the Legislature itself has made it mandatory on the part of the Legal Aid Committee to send a copy of the certificate of eligibility in the statutory Form B to the Court concerned, on receipt whereof, the Court concerned is left with no option than to grant remission of court-fees to the aided person.

4. It is of importance to notice here that a person does not ipso facto become entitled for legal aid only because he belongs to a particular caste tribe of the specified weaker section of the society. It is because under Sec. 18 of the Legal Aid Act, his claim to legal aid is required to be ascertained to be ascertained by the Legal Aid Committee under the Act, inter alia, keeping in view the genuiness and merit of the litigation.

5. Mr. Devi Prasad has assailed the correctness of the judgment in the case of Chanda Nath V/s. Janak Kishore Devi (supra) on the ground that while deciding that case this Court has not taken note of earlier decisions of this Court in the cases of Laxmi Ravidas V/s. Ramchandra Gope reported in 1983 BBCJ 707, Sk. Md. Osaid V/s. Sk. Abdul Wahid reported in 1985 PLJR 523 and Purnima Majhian V/s. Deputy Commissioner reported in 1991 (1) PLJR 730. In our opinion, the submission of Mr. Devi Prasad cannot be accepted as valid. The decisions in the case of Laxmi Ravidas V/s. Ramchandra Gope (supra) and Purnima Majhian V/s. Dy. Commissioner (supra) are based on the notification dated 19-3-1981 which is no more in force because that notification was issued keeping in view the policy decision of the Government contained in a scheme which was repealed by the Bihar State Weaker Section Legal Aid Ordinance, 1982 promulgated on 23-9-1982, the provisions whereof were subsequently incorporated in the succeeding Legal Aid Act. Moreover, in none of the said two cases the Court had any occasion to examine the question with reference to the provisions of the Legal Aid Act. It was so because at the time the Laxmi Ravidass case was decided, the Legal Aid Act had not even come into force, and in the latter case of Purnima Majhian (supra) the said notification was of no consequence since it already stood superseded. But this fact was not brought to the notice o