In a suit seeking a declaratory decree or order with consequential relief, the court fees must be paid on the total value of the suit, not on the separate values of each relief.

( 1 ) THERE seems to have been misconception in this case on the part of all parties. The plaintiffs brought a suit in which they prayed for a large variety of reliefs, the chief of which, are construction of a will, declaration of their title to certain movable and immovable properties, partition of the said properties, accounts and appointment of a receiver, pending the final determination of the suit. The above is only a broad summary of the large multitude of reliefs which have been crowded into the prayer portion of the plaint, but they give a fairly accurate idea of the lines along which the plaintiffs desired the Court to relieve them. The suit was valued for the purpose of jurisdiction at Rs. 55173-3-9 but for the purposes of court-fees the plaintiffs adopted a method which one thought was no longer surviving. They took the reliefs on construction of the will, declaration, accounts and the appointment of a receiver separately, valued each relief at Rs. 500/- and paid a sum of Rs. 187-8-0 upon the total amount of Rs. 2000/-which, according to them, was the total value of the four reliefs. In addition they also paid the fixed court-fee of Rs. 15/- for the relief of partition. We are informed that certain further small amounts were subsequently paid -- one such amount having been for the relief of the removal of the receiver which is said to have been subsequently added.

( 2 ) IT was objected on behalf of defendant 3 that the method according to which the court-fee had been computed was not correct and that the plaintiffs were not entitled to pay a lump sum as court-fees on the total of the four amounts at which they had separately valued the four reliefs. It does not seem to have been contended that the value of Rs. 500/- put on each relief was inadequate, but what appears to have been contended was that each of the reliefs prayed for was a distinct relief, asked for on the basis of a distinct cause of action, within the meaning of Section 17, Court-fees Act, and accordingly the court-fee was to be calculated distributi'vely. The learned Judge below has overruled that contention. He has held, as appears to have been admitted before him, that the suit was governed by Section 7, Clause (iv) (c), Court-fees Act and that court-fee had been rightly paid in a single sum on the total amount of the values of the several reliefs claimed. It was against that decision that defendant 3 obtained the present Rule. 0

( 3 ) THE Rule was issued only on a limited ground, and that ground is that court-fees should have been paid separately on the several items and not on the total amount of Rs. 2000/ -. It was at one stage conceded by the learned Advocate for the petitioner that the learned Judge was right in holding that the suit was governed by Section 7, Clause (iv) (c), Court-fees Act and what he tried to suggest on the basis of that concession was that the sum of Rs. 2000/- was not an adequate valuation of the principal and the consequential reliefs claimed and that, therefore, there ought to have been an enquiry under Section 8 (C), Court-fees Act. Later on, however, the learned Advocate reverted to the ground upon which the Rule had been issued and contended that court-fee could not be paid on the total of the values of the several reliefs as had been done. Reliance was placed on Section 17.

( 4 ) IT is impossible to see how, once it is admitted that the suit is governed by Section 7 (iv (c), Court-fees Act, any question of any distributive valuation of the several reliefs can arise. It is true that, at one time, that method of valuation was quite common and an instance is to be found in the case of -- 'rupchand Ghosh v. Sm. Kshirodamoyi Dasi', AIR 1923 Gal 329 (A) to which the learned Judge has referred. But the incorrectness of so valuing a suit falling under Section 7 (iv) (c), Court-fees Act was pointed out by Sir George Rankin in --'in re Kalipada Mukherji', AIR 1930 Cal 686 (B ). The learned Chief Justice