The main legal point established in the judgment is that for a suit for mandatory injunction, the court fees should be valued as per Section 7(iv)(d) of the Court Fees Act and not based on the market value of the suit property.

JAYANT NATH, J.

1. The present petition is filed seeking to impugn the order dated 18.03.2015 passed by the trial court.

2. The petitioner has filed the present suit for mandatory injunction and mesne profits. It is contended that the petitioner is the owner of premises No. 1457, Gali Masjid Syed Rafai, Bazar Chitli Qabar, Jama Masjid, Delhi comprising of portion constructed on the first and second floor of the said property. It is further stated that the petitioner added one room on the second floor as the respondents were in need of a residential accommodation. Inasmuch as respondent No.1 is the cousin sister of the petitioner, the said respondent No.1 was allowed to use the first and the second floor without any license fee. It is urged that license now stands terminated and hence, the present suit.

3. By the impugned order dated 18.03.2015, the trial court held that a suit for mandatory injunction is maintainable against a licensee. The trial court, however, relied upon the judgment of the Division Bench of this High Court in the case of Ashok Chaudhary vs. Dr. (Mrs.) Inderjeet Sandhu, 1998 (4) AD (Delhi) 917 and Renu Nagar vs. Anup Singh Khosla & Anr. 2009 (156) DLT 723 to hold that the petitioner has to value the suit for the purpose of jurisdiction at the market value of the suit property. Accordingly, a direction was passed to the petitioner/plaintiff to make necessary amendments in the plaint regarding valuation of the suit property and pay deficit court fees.

4. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioner has relied upon the following judgments to contend that a suit for mandatory injunction would lie and there is no requirement for valuing the property at market rate.

(i) Sant Lal Jain vs. Avtar Singh, 1985 (1) Current Civil Cases 1078.

(ii) Joseph Severance vs. Benny Mathew, 2005 (8) JT 509.

(iii) Gyan Chand & Ors. vs. Ram Chander, 2014 Legal Eagle (Del.) 476.

(iv) Mulk Raj Khullar vs. Anil Kapur & Ors.

5. Learned counsel appearing for the respondents has, however, contended that the suit is essentially for possession and hence, the petitioner would have to pay ad valorem court fees based on the market valuation of the suit property. He also submits that the suit is not maintainable inasmuch as respondent No.1 is also a co-owner of the suit property. Reliance is placed by the respondents on the following judgments to contend that there is no infirmity in the impugned order.

(i) Deepak Gupta vs. Praveen Kumar Gupta in CRP 194/2010 dated 11.07.2012

(ii) Jugal Kishore vs. Des Raj Seth, (1968) 4 DLT 571

6. This court in the case of Mulk Raj Khullar vs. Anil Kapur & Ors. (supra) has already dealt with similar contentions relying upon the judgments in the case of Sant Lal Jain vs. Avtar Singh(supra) and Joseph Severance vs. Benny Mathew (supra). This court held as follows:

“13. Reference may be had to the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Sant Lal Jain versus Avtar Singh (supra) where the Hon’ble Supreme Court approved the judgment of the High Court in the case of Milka Singh vs. Diana, AIR 1964 J&K 99 and held as follows:-

“6. In Milkha Singh v. Diana, it has been observed that the principle once a licensee always a licensee would apply to all kinds of licences and that it cannot be said that the moment the licence it terminated, the licensee’s possession becomes that of a trespasser. In that case, one of us (Murtaza Fazal Ali, J. as he then was) speaking for the Division Bench has observed:

“After the termination of licence, the licensee is under a clear obligation to surrender his possession to the owner and if he fails to do so, we do not see any reason why the licensee cannot be compelled to discharge this obligation by way of a mandatory injunction under s. 55 of the Specific Relief Act. We might further mention that even under English law a suit for injunction to evict a licensee has always been held to be maintainable.

Where a licenser approaches the court for an injunction within a reasonable time