Time granted by judge in the Admission Court to pay the deficit.

The Chief Justice.-The petitioner is the plaintiff in O.S. No. 61 of 1946 in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Guntur. She obtained a decree on 7th December, 1946. On 15th April, 1947, the respondent to this application, who was the first defendant in the Court below, presented to this Court an appeal which was valued at Rs. 25,305. The proper court-fee payable thereon was Rs. 1 342-7-0 The appeal was presented however with a court-fee of Rs. 10. The memorandum of appeal was returned by the office, on 1st May, 1947, inter alia for payment of the deficit court-fee. On 3rd January, 1949, an application was made by the respondent herein to excuse the delay in payment of the deficit court-fee. The delay was of nearly two years. On 5th January, 1949, a learned Judge of this Court sitting in the Admission Court excused the delay without directing notice to the other side, that is, the petitioner before us. The petitioner on coming to know of the facts after a stay of execution had been obtained by the respondent has filed the present application to dismiss the appeal on the ground that the delay in the oav-ment of deficit court-fee ought not to have been excused and therefore the apneal should be rejected.

The main ground on which the delay was sought to be excused was that the respondent could not raise sufficient money to enable her to pay the court-fee According to her the petitioner was also instrumental in scaring away prospective alienees from whom she could raise moneys. In the affidavit filed by the petitioner in this application, among other allegations, is to be found what we consider an important allegation, namely, that on 13th March, 1948, the respondent sold three acres so cents of her land for Rs. 1,000 for the express purpose of meeting the expenses of the present appeal. This fact is not denied and cannot be denied because the registration extract of the document in question has been produced betore us. What the respondent says is that she did sell the property for Rs. 1,050 but she spent away the sale proceeds for another litigation. Having regard to this tact, it is clear that even the ground alleged by her in her application for excusing the delay in payment of the deficit court-fee cannot be sustained. Assuming however that she was as a matter of fact unable to raise sufficient moneys till the date of her application to excuse the delay, that by itself cannot be a sufficient ground to have the delay excused. If she did not have the means to pay the court-tee, she could have, if so advised, filed the appeal in forma pauperis. We cannot tolerate the practice of filing an appeal with a patently deficit court-fee simply because before the last date of filing the appeal the appellant is unable to secure enough money for payment of the full court-fee and then taking time to raise the deficit amount and got the delay excused as a matter of course.

Unfortunately in this case the delay was excused by a learned Judge of this Court. It was sought to be argued on behalf of the respondent by Mr. Ramamurthi Aiyar that as a learned Judge of this Court has excused the delay, the only course for the other side was to file a review application. He drew our attention to the decision of Wallace, J., in Basavayya v. Venkatappayya1, but we are unable to find anything in that decision to lay down that a review is the only remedy open to the party to whom notice was not given before passing an order to his detriment. On the other hand, we are in entire agreement with the observations of the learned Judges in Kunhammad v. Kunhammad2, that in cases in which a Judge sitting in the Admission Court excuses the delay in payment of court-fee or delay in presentation of the appeal without notice to the other side, it is assumed that the other side would be always at liberty at a subsequent stage or even at the hearing of the appeal to contend that the delay should not have been excused. It is desirable that notice should be given in