Rajagopalan, J.-The plaintiff whose claim for a half share of the properties in the possession of the defendant and for recovery of possession thereof was dismissed,, appealed. In paragraph 33 of the plaint the plaintiff valued the suit for purposes of jurisdiction at Rs.15 lakhs and Rs.1,000, Rs.15 lakhs represented the value of the half share in the properties the plaintiff claimed and Rs.1,000 was the figure at which the plaintiff valued the relief of accounts he sought in addition to the share. The plaintiff did not value separately for purpose of Court-fee the claim to a half share in the properties, as he paid the fixed Court-fee on that relief under Schedule II, Article 17-B of Court-fees Act.

By its order dated ‘28th April, 1954, this Court decided, that Court-fees should be paid on the memorandum of appeal, not under Article 17-B of Schedule II of the Court-fees Act but under section 7(iv)(b) of the Court-Fees Act, and the Court directed the plaintiff to value the relief he claimed in the memorandum of appeal on that basis. The plaintiff thereupon valued the relief for the share he claimed in the properties at Rs.50,000. When objections was taken to the valuation offered by the plaintiff he filed C.M.P.No.9335 of 1954 for permission to amend paragraph 33 of the plaint by substituting Rs.50,000 for Rs.15 lakhs as the valuation for purposes of jurisdiction.

We are of opinion that the amendment sought by the plaintiff in C.M.P. No.9335 of 1954 should not be allowed, and we shall set out our reasons later in this order. The question how the memorandum of appeal should be valued for the purpose of Court-fee, will therefore be decided with reference to the averments in the plaint as they stood.

Section 7(iv) of the Court-fees Act itself lays down that in suits under the several categories of section 7(iv) the Court-fees should be paid according to the amount at which the relief sought is valued in the plaint or memorandum of appeal, and the further provision is that in all such suits the plaintiff shall state the amount at which the plaintiff values the relief sought. We need not concern ourselves with the provision which applies only to suits coming within the scope of subclause.(c) of section 7(iv) of the Court-fees Act.

In Ramayya v. Ramaswami1, a Full Bench of this Court laid down that the Court could not reject the valuation made by the plaintiff in a suit under S.7(iv ) even if such valuation was proved to be not bona fide but an arbitrary valuation. These principles were reaffirmed by two other Full Benches in Arunachalam Chetty v. Rangaswami Pillai2 and Narayana v. Periappan3.

It can therefore be taken as settled law that in a suit that has to be valued for purposes of Court-fee under section 7 (iv)(b) of the Court-fees Act the plaintiff’ may value the relief at his own figure. Had the plaintiff valued the relief for purposes of Court-fee under section 7(iv)(b) of the Court-fees Act, the Court could not have refused to accept that valuation even if it was arbitrary; and the same valuation would have prevailed when the plaintiff had to pay Court-fee on the memorandum of appeal. But in this case the plaintiff did not specifically value the relief of partition in the plaint as he originally presented it; he only furnished a valuation for the purpose of jurisdiction, and that the valuation was Rs.15 lakhs.

That the valuation of the relief falling under section 7(iv)(b) of the Court-fees Act for purposes of appeal should be the same as the valuation in the plaint cannot now admit of any dispute. In Narayanan v. Periappari1, the learned Chief Justice laid down at page 1039:

“In our opinion the scheme of the Act in this respect is to allow a plaintiff to value his relief at the figure he chooses, but it does not allow him to change that valuation. He is allowed to value for the purpose of the litigation and when he has done so his valuation governs the forum of trial and of appeal. There is no objection to an appellant abandonin

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