1. The controversy in these revision petitions relates to the Court fee payable on a memorandum of appeal from the final decree in a suit for partition. The answer to the controversy depends on the true construction of Art.17-B of Schedule II of the Court-fees Act,1870,as amended in Madras, and obtaining in the year 1953 when the suit for partition, the final decree from which was appealed against, was filed. Art.17-B reads as follows:

2. It is common ground that it is not possible to estimate at a money value the subject-matter in dispute in the original suit in which the final decree was passed and that a plaint in that suit was properly stamped with the fixed fee of Rs 100/-.

3. The expression "suit" used in Art.17-B, as we understand it means the original suit and the words, Where it is not possible to estimate at a money value the subject-matter in dispute"

should refer to the original suit concerned and not either to the word "plaint" or to the words "memorandum of appeal."

4. Art.17 (vi) of Schedule II of the Court-fees Act 1870, reads as follows: Table:#2

That Article has come up for judicial discussion in Diwan Chand v. Dhani Ram and others reported in AIR. 1941 Lah