Basheer Ahmed Sayeed, J.- These three Civil Revision Petitions arise out of a common order passed by the learned Principal Judge, City Civil Court, in C. S. Nos. 224 of 1950, 353 of 1947 and 272 of 1950 and some other suits transferred for disposal to the file of the City Civil Court from the Original Side of the High Court.

The Madras City Civil Court Act (VII of 1892) was amended by Madras Act X of 1955. The main purpose of this Amending Act was to enhance the pecuniary jurisdiction of the City Civil Court from Rs. 10,000 up to Rs. 50,000. In consequence, section 8 of Madras Act X of 1955 enacted a transitory provision in the following terms:

“Transitory provision (1).- All suits pending in the High Court on the date of the commencement of this Act and which would be within the cognizance of the Madras City Civil Court under the provisions of this Act shall s tand transferred to the Madras City Civil Court”. By a further amending Act, Madras Act XXIX of 1955, this transitory provision was amended to read as follows:

“All suits pending in the High Court on the date of the commencement of this Act and which would be within the cognizance of the Madras City Civil Court under the provisions of the said Act as amended by this Act shall stand transferred to the Madras City Civil Court.”

Clause (2) of section 8 is hot relevant for the purpose of these petitions. By virtue of this transitory provision a number of suits (13 in number) referred to in the common order, from which theseCivil Revision Petitions have arisen, were transferred from the Original Side of the Madras High Court to the City Civil Court. After such transfer, a question arose as to whether additional Court-fee should be paid on the suits so transferred arid which were pending trial before that Court. Notices were ordered to the parties and the present petitioners filed their objections. After hearing the parties and the Government Pleader, the learned Principal City Civil Judge passed the order under revision holding that the plaintiffs should pay additional Court-fee as per law and gave them time for paying the additional Court-fee. In doing so, the learned Principal City Civil Judge based his decision on the rulings contained in Ragunath Ganesh v. Vaman Vasudeo,1, Official Assignee, Madras v. Ranganathan2, ahd Ramamirtham v. Rama Film Service3.

Mr. G. N. Chari, learned counsel for the petitioners, before us, contended in the first instance that under section 87 (2) of Act XIV of 1955 that is the newly enacted Court-Fees and Suits Valuation Act, additional Court-fee could be claimed only if the suits had been instituted in the City Civil Court, where they are to be tried, before the commencement of Act XIV of 1955, and that these suits having been instituted on the Original Side of the High Court and subsequently transferred to the City Civil Court the saving clause (2) of section 87 will not apply. We do not think that there is any force in this contention of the learned counsel for it has to be noted that when the suits in question were originally instituted in the High Court on its Original Side, the fee payable was regulated not by the Court-Fees Act and Suits Valuation Act but by the Fees Rules framed by the High Court for the institution of suits on the Original Side. The fee prescribed by the said Original Side Rules had been paid on these suits, when they were instituted, and consequently the suits must be considered to have been properly instituted so far as the High Court was concerned. Since the Court Fees Act does not govern the institution of suits on the Original Side of the High Court, the argument based on section 87 (2) cannot be considered to be relevant to the point that arises for consideration in these petitions.

These are suits which have been properly instituted on the Original Side but have later been transferred to the City Civil Court for trial, and the transfer has been under section 8 of Madras Act, X of 1955. But the learned Government Pl

Click Here to Read the rest of this document