The main legal point established in the judgment is the determination of the applicable court fee for an appeal under the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act, based on the interpretation of relevant statutory provisions and case law.

Wadsworth, J.

1. The question which we have to decide relates to the court fee payable on an appeal filed under Rule 9 of. the rules framed under the Madras Agriculturists Relief Act (IV of 1938) and issued under G.O. No. 2634. These rules provide for an application either by the debtor or by the creditor for a declaration as to the amount of the debt due. It is expressly provided that the application shall not be maintainable under the rules if a suit for the recovery of the debt be pending and it is also provided that every such application shall bear a court-fee stamp of the value of twelve annas. Rule 9 states that the order of the Court declaring the amount of the debt under Rule 7 shall be subject to appeal and second appeal as if it were a decree in an original suit and it was the view of the office that the effect of this provision is to make appeals preferred against orders declaring the amount of a debt taxable as appeals from declaratory decrees under Article 17-A of the Court-Fees Act as amended in Madras. The authority relied upon for this view is a decision of Burn, J., on the effect of a similar provision in Section 50 (2) of the Malabar Tenancy Act which provides that appeals shall lie from orders made under Section 12 etc., as if they were decrees in suits.

2. It is evident that the orders against which appeals are filed in these cases are very much to the same effect as decrees in declaratory suits. They finally decide as between the parties the amount due on the debt; these decisions will be binding in future litigation and they cannot of themselves be executed. There is no specific article in the Court-Fees Act laying down what shall be the court-fee payable on appeal from an order which is appealable as if it were a decree but questions similar to that which we have now to decide have come before the Courts on numerous occasions. Under Order 21, Rule 50 (3) of the Code of Civil Procedure the Court is concerned with an order which shall have the same force and be subject to the same conditions as to appeal or otherwise as if it were a decree and it has been held that under this provision the appeal is to be stamped with an ad valorem fee as an appeal from a decree. But then it must be noticed that the words or otherwise show that the order which is to have the force of a decree is to be governed by the same conditions not only with reference to the procedure in appeal but also in other respects. One of such decisions is in Jugal Kishore Gulab Singh v. Dina Nath-Siri Ram I.L.R.(1934) Lah. 893. There are two cases which have been cited before us which deal with statutory provisions that an order shall be subject to appeal as if it were a decree. One is in Jamsang Devabhai v. Goyabhai Kikabai I.L.R.(1891) Bom. 408 in which it was held that though the procedure in appeal was that for an appeal from a decree, the appeal was not governed by the provisions of the Court-fees Act relating to appeals from decrees and that it must be treated as a mere application falling under Article I of Schedule II. A similar view was taken by a Full Bench of the Calcutta High Court in Upadhya Thakur v. Persidh Singh I.L.R.(1896) Cal. 723 (F.B.). Both of these cases have been quoted with approval by a Bench of this Court in Rodrigues v. Mathias (1911)21MLJ481 , which, though concerned with a rather different matter, had to consider what is the proper article of the Court-Fees Act to apply. The learned Government Pleader has relied on decisions mainly relating to proceedings in execution under special statutory provisions rendering an order under the, special statute executable as a decree and these decisions have held that such a provision attracts all the procedure including the right of appeal laid down for execution petitions in the Code of Civil Procedure and also attracts the law of limitation for the execution of decrees and orders of a Civil Court under Article 192 of the Limitation Act. An instance of such a decision