P. N. BHAGWATI, J. B. MEHTA, J.

( 1 ) THIS Revision Application directed against an order made by the Taxing Officer under sec. 5 (2) of the Bombay Court-fees Act 1959 raises a short question of construction of sec. 7 (1) of the Act. The question arises in the following manner. The petitioner owned two plots of land situate in Manipur Town Planning Scheme Ahmedabad. These plots were acquired by the government by a notification dated 2nd May 1957 issued under sec 6 of the Land Acquisition Act 1894 The petitioner claimed compensation for the acquisition of these plots at the rate of Rs. 13-25 np. per square yard in the course of the proceedings before the Land Acquisition Officer. The Land Acquisition Officer how- ever awarded compensation to the petitioner at the rate of Rs. 4 per square yard in the case of one plot and at the rate of Rs. 3 50 np. per square yard in the case of the other. The petitioner thereupon applied for a reference under sec. 18 and the Reference came up for hearing before the City Civil Court Ahmedabad. The learned Judge of the City Civil Court increased the rate of compensation in the case of both the plots by Re. 1/- per square yard The additional compensation awarded to the petitioner as a result of this judgment was Rs. 28 381 The learned Judge of the City Civil Court also awarded interest to the petitioner on this amount of additional compensation at the rate of 4 per cent per annum from the date of taking possession of the plots till payment. The petitioner was aggrieved by the order relating to the amount of compensation contained in the award and he therefore preferred an appeal to this Court. In the memorandum of appeal the petitioner claimed compensation at the rate of Rs. 10. 50 np. per square yard and after giving credit for the amount of compensation already awarded the additional amount of compensation claimed by the petitioner came to Rs. 1 54 842 np. The petitioner also claimed interest on this additional amount of compensation at the rate of 4 per cent per annum from the date of taking possession of the plots upto 20th December 1962 being the date of the judgment of the learned Judge of the City Civil Court and this claim for interest amounted to Rs. 23 338. 52 np. The amount of additional compensation together with the amount of interest claimed by the Petitioner in the Memorandum of Appeal thus aggregated to Rs 1 78 180 np. At the time of filing the memorandum of appeal the petitioner valued the claim in the appeal at Rs. 1 78 180. 87 np. and paid a court-fee of Rs. 4 100 on the basis of such valuation. The office however took the view and as we shall presently show rightly that the court-fee was payable only on the amount of additional compensation claimed by the petitioner and not on the amount of interest which the petitioner claimed on the amount of additional compensation. On this view a court-fee of only Rs. 3 900 was payable by the petitioner and there was excess payment of court-fee to the extent of Rs. 200. 00. The matter was thereupon referred to the Taxing Officer under sec. 5 (2) and the Taxing Officer by an order dated 14 May 1963 decided that court-fee was payable by the petitioner not only on the amount of additional compensation but also on the amount of interest claimed by the petitioner on the amount of additional compensation The petitioner thereupon brought the matter in revision before this Court under sec. 5 (3) and the Revision Application was referred by me sitting as a single Judge to a Division Bench of this Court. Hence the present Revision Application before us.

( 2 ) THE question which arises for consideration in this Revision Application lies in a very narrow compass In the course of the arguments before us a reference was made to Article I of Schedule I to the Act but that Article is a residuary Article and if there is any provision of the Act which deals specifically with a memorandum of appeal in a particular case the residuary Article cannot apply and th

Click Here to Read the rest of this document