Ad valorem court fee is payable on an appeal against compensation awarded under the Requisitioning and Acquisitioning of Immovable Property Act, 1952.

( 1 ) THE properties of the appellant having been requistioned and he having been dissatisfied with the amount offered, the matter was REFERRED TO for arbitration and an order had been passed u/s 8 of the Requisitining and Acquisitioning of Immovable property Act, 1952 (the Act), awarding certain compensation to the appellant. The appellant has filed an appeal in this Court. It appears that the appellant has been awarded compensation at 30 paise per sq. feet for covered area while no compensation has been awarded for the uncovered area. The total compensation awarded come to Rs. 2,264. 00 per mensem. The appellant is claiming that he is entitled to a monthly compensatiotn worked out at Rs 1. 30 P. per sq. ft. for covered area and 25 paise per sq. feet for the uncovered area. While filing the appeal, the appellant has affixed Court fee on the valuation of Rs 15,000. 00 per mensem which is less than the amount claimed by him in the appeal. He has also affixed a fixed court fee. By this C. M. No. 2736/88, he raised a point that as there was a dispute, as the law was not clear as to what court fee was to be paid whether fixed or ad valorem, this matter be decided earlier and that is why the matter has come up. The counsel for the appellant, for his contention that a fixed court fee is payable under Article 11 of the Schedule II of the Court Fee Act relies on Kanwar Jagat Bahadur S. v. the Punjab State (AIR 1957 Punjab page 32;. That Article provides for fixed court fee to be paid in Memorandum of Appeal when the appeal is not from the decree or an order having the force of a decree. The counsel for the respondent, however, relied on section 8 of the Court Fees Act, which provides that the amount of fee payable under the Court Fee Act on a Memorandum of Appeal against an order relating to compensation under any Act for the time being in force, for the acquisition of land shall be computed according to the difference between the amount to be awarded and the amount claimed by the appellant. The argument which Mr. Hari Shanker urges was accepted by the Punjab High Court, which took the, view that section 8 of the Court Fees Act should be confined to orders as envisaged in the Civil Procedure Code and that as this matter does not fall within the definition of a decree and is not an order having the force of a decree, the matter should be held to be covered by Article 11 of Schedule II. This reasoning, however, has not been accepted by the Supreme Court in Sahadu Gangaram vs. Spl. Deputy Collector, 1971 (1) SLR page 146, where the Court rejected the contention that the award made by Arbitrator has no effect and it could not be considered an order. It also rejected the contention that the word order used in Section 8 should be construed and defined as an order under the CPC. It may be mentioned that the Supreme Court was considering the case on an appeal from an order on compensation passed on acquisition under this very Act of 1952. No doubt the Court was considering Section 7 (1) of the Bombay Court Fees Act, 1959 but the same is similar to Section 8 of the Court Pees Act, 1870. The Suprerne Court held that the court fee was payable advaloram at the rates prescribed in Schedule 1 Though the Punjab case was REFERRED TO to and though its correctness was not commented upon because it was not necessary it is apparent that athe main basis of the Punjab decision was on the reasoning that the order mentioned in Section 8 must have the force of a decree or must be restricted to as defined in the CPC and as that reasoning has not been accepted by the Supreme Court, AIR 1957. Punjab, page 32, can no longer be held to be a good law. A faint effort was made by Mr. Hari Shanker that the Supreme Court has not considered Section 4 of the Court Fees Act. Apart from the fact that when there is a, direct decision of the Supreme Court on the point, the argument that some other reasoning was not considered to arrive at a contrary conclusi