The main legal point established in the judgment is that the demand for heavy court fee should not impede access to justice, and court fee provisions should be interpreted to ensure equal access to courts.

1. These two second appeals, which remain un-numbered, because the common appellant contests the demand for larger court-fee made by the taxing officer, relate to orders on applications under S.10-A and 10-B of the Madras Marumakkathayam Act, 1933 whereunder, the respondent-wife, who was sought to be divorced by the husband, claimed successfully, maintenance pendente lite under S.10A, and later, maintenance till remarriage under S.10-B of the Act. Appeals were carried against both the orders, but in vain, and now the husband, or rather the ex-husband, divorce having been ordered, comes up in second appeal challenging the order passed against him under the aforesaid provisions of the Madras Marumakkathayam Act, 1933.

2. These court-fee references, I may state right at the beginning, have to be viewed against the constitutional perspective of equal access to courts for all alike which is restricted by the requirement that a pursuit of legal remedies will be conditional on first paying a fee which may be heavy.

3. If court-fee an onerous sum in this case is leviable from the husband, it will be equally leviable from the wife who, destitute and divorced, seeks payment of maintenance from her husband and may well be rebuffed at the outset by a demand of fee for the very institution of the claim; and in many cases this may amount to denial of relief to the down-and-out divorcee and thus an indirect violation of the rule of law in its larger connotation. A beneficent bit of social legislation would thus be muted and the law in the books fail when it comes to law in the courts!

4. The scheme of the Madras Marumakkathayam Act provides for petitions for dissolution of marriage and where any such proceeding is pending, the poorer of the two, the wife or the husband as the case may be, may move for maintenance during the pendency of the proceeding and also for the payment to the petitioner of the expenses of the proceeding. A court exercising jurisdiction under the relevant Chapter, may also order the respondent to pay to the applicant for her or his maintenance and support periodical claims. S.10-A and 10-B of the Madras Marumakkathayam Act, therefore, provide for interlocutory applications in the original petition. Ordinarily, applications of this type fall under Art.11 (g), Schedule II to the Kerala Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1959 (for short, called the Act) since that is the residuary provision in the case of applications and petitions. An appeal against an order on an application or petition, not otherwise provided for, I am immediately concerned with such an appeal is covered by Art.3 (iii) (A) (1) (b) of the Second Schedule to the Act, which is the residuary provision relating to appeals from orders. The wife, in the trial court, and the husband, in the first appellate court and here, have paid court-fee on the aforesaid basis. The demand made now is for payment of court-fee ad valorem on the amount computed under S.23 of the Act. There is no dispute that S.23 relates to suits for maintenance and annuities and cannot apply, except by some special process of reasoning, to applications. The process commended to me for acceptance by the Government Pleader is that although only suits for maintenance are covered by S.23, S.17 of the Act attracts S.10 to 14 to petitions and applications and the higher tax becomes exigible. Let us examine the argument.

5. S.17 reads:

"17. Fee payable on petitions, applications etc. The provisions of S.10 to 14 shall apply mutatis mutandis to the determination and levy of fee in respect of petitions, applications and other proceedings in Courts in the same way as they apply to the determination and levy of fee on plaints

in suits."

It is apparent that this provision is calculated to import the procedure for correcting errors in the matter of levy of court-fee and for certain other matters and does not deal with the rate of fee. S.10 merely states that certain particulars of the subject-matter