IMPORTANT POINT
The main legal principle established in the judgment is that the valuation of a suit property in a suit for recovery of possession from a trespasser should be based on the relief sought in the plaint, and there is no objective standard or determinant factor prescribed by law to determine the valuation in such a situation. The plaintiff can put his own valuation, and the court can revise such valuation if the reliefs claimed are either not valued or undervalued.

JUDGMENT :

SHAMPA SARKAR, J.

1. The revisional application arises out of an order dated September 21, 2022, passed by the learned Civil Judge (Junior Division), 3rd Court at Howrah in Title Suit No. 40 of 1989.

2. By the order impugned, the learned court allowed the application dated January 18, 2019 under Section 11 of the West Bengal Court Fees Act, 1970 (hereinafter referred to as the said Act), filed by the defendant. The District Registrar, Howrah was directed to submit a report in respect of the valuation of the suit property after appropriate enquiry, without being influenced by the parties in the suit.

3. Mr. Mukherjee, learned advocate appearing on behalf of the plaintiff/owner, submits that the suit was filed in 1989. The defendant had been consistently trying to drag the suit by filing improper applications under Section 17(1) and 17(2) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act. Thereafter, those applications were dismissed. Suddenly in 2019, the plaintiff once again decided to delay the progress of the suit by filing a frivolous application under Section 11 of the said Act.

4. It is contended by Mr. Mukherjee that the said application was initially rejected by the learned court below. The court held that the court fees payable would be computed according to the amount of rent that the immovable property would fetch. The plaintiff had rightly valued the suit property at Rs. 7200/- i.e. monthly rent @ Rs. 600/- for a period of 12 months and Rs. 600/- for damages. At that stage, the court was of the opinion that the suit had been properly valued under Section 7(xiii)(d) of the said Act.

5. Such order was challenged before this Court in C.O. 870 of 2019. The learned coordinate Bench was of the view that as the defendant was a trespasser, the suit should be valued in terms of Section 7(vi)(a) of the 1970 Act and not as per Section 7(xiii)(d) of the said Act. On such observation and upon specifically holding that Section 7(vi)(a) would be squarely applicable in the present case and not Section 7(xiii)(d) of the said Act, the trial court was directed to make an enquiry under Section 11 as to whether the suit had been properly valued or not.

6. The relevant portion of the decision of the learned coordinate Bench is set out herein for convenience:

“Considering the scope and ambit of the suit, the same is one for eviction of a person who was initially a lessee, but subsequently was rendered a tenant at sufferance on termination of the lease, which is similar to being a trespasser.

Section 7(xiii)(d) of the 1970 Act says that, in a suit between the landlord and the tenant for the recovery of immovable property from a tenant, including a tenant holding over after the determination of a tenancy, the suit should be valued according to the amount of the rent or the immovable property to which the suit refers, payable for the year next before the date of presenting the plaint.

However, the present suit is not one between a landlord and a tenant, pleading the continuance of the tenancy, contractual or statutory, as for example, would be a suit under Section 6 of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997.

In the present case, the defendant/petitioner was categorically described to be a lessee at inception, later on rendered a tenant at sufferance, without expressly saying so, thereby giving the defendant the status of a trespasser.

Section 7(vi)(a) of the 1970 Act stipulates that in a suit for recovery of possession of immovable property from a trespasser, where no declaration of title to property is either prayed for or necessary for disposal of the suit, courts fees are payable according to the amount at which the reliefs sought is valued in the plaint, subject to the provisions of Section 11 of the 1970 Act.

The inception of the phrase “subject to the provisions of Section 11” which is not there in all the other provisions of Section 7, ipso facto is an indicator of the fact that the whims of the plaintiff in evaluating the suit could be the s