Scope of valuation.

This Civil Revision Petition raises a question relating to court-fee and jurisdiction. The suit which has given rise to this Civil Revision Petition was instituted by the respondent herein for setting aside the compromise decree passed in O.S. No. 610 of 1944 on 13th December, 1945. The short facts of the case leading up to this litigation may be stated.

The present first respondent filed O.S. No. 15 of 1927 on the file of the District Munsif of Madurantakam for recovering maintenance from the adoptive mother of the present petitioner and obtained a decree therein. In execution of that decree for maintenance the present first respondent brought the properties to sale and purchased them herself. Subsequently the present petitioner filed O.S. No. 610 of 1944 for a declaration that the decree obtained in O.S. No. 15 of 1927 was not binding upon him for the reason that he was not impleaded as a party to that suit. That suit ultimately ended in a compromise decree under which the present first respondent was given 3 acres 12 cents of nanja land with absolute rights in full . quit of her rights under the decree in O.S. No. 15 of 1927. Now the first respondent herein has filed O.S. No. 312 of 1946 to set aside that compromise decree and valued the suit for purposes of court-fee and jurisdiction at Rs. 317-14-0 which was the valuation given by the present petitioner in the plaint O.S. No. 610 of 1944.

It was maintained by the present petitioner as first defendant in the suit that 0 the value of the suit should be the market value of the property secured under the decree which will be in excess of the pecuniary jurisdiction of the Court of the District Munsif, and not the value of the claim given in the suit, O.S. No. 610 of 1944. The trial Court overruling this objection held that the basis for the valuation of the plaint in the present suit is the value of the claim and not the value of the property which was given to the plaintiff under the decree in O.S. No. 610 of 1944 and directed the plaintiff to pay ad oaloiem court-fee on Rs. 371-14-0. The aggrieved defendant has presented this Civil Revision Petition.

Mr. Desikan the learned counsel for the petitioner has urged before me, as in the lower Court, that the value of the claim in O.S. No. 610 of 1944 cannot be the basis of the valuation for purposes of court-fee in the present suit and that it is the value of the property that was secured under the decree sought to be set aside that should govern the valuation of the present suit.

The short question for determination in this revision petition is whether it is the value of the claim given in O. S. No. 610 of 1944 or the value of the property given under the decree that should form the basis of the valuation of the plaint in the present suit. I think the contention of Mr. Desikan, the learned counsel for the petitioner, must prevail. The wording of tection 7(iv-A) of the Court-Fees Act runs as follows:

“In a suit for cancellation of a decree for money or othe,r property having a money value or other document securing money or other property having such value, according to the value of the subject-matter of the suit, and such value shall be deemed to be

If, the whole decree or other document is sought to be cancelled, the amount or the value of the property for which the decree was passed or the other document executed.”

I am of opinion that the wording of this section does not admit of any other construction than the one which is sought to be placed thereon by Mr. Desikan, the learned counsel for the petitioner. Anyhow I shall refer to some of the decisions which have laid down the proposition now stated by Mr. Desikan. The following passage from the judgment of the Full Bench in Ramaswami v. Rangachari1, is apposite:

“The plaintiff must be held to have impliedly asked for cancellation of the decrees passed against him and must accordingly stamp his plaint ad valorem on the amount of the decrees and not merely on his share fraction,