M.Y. EQBAL, C.J.,

In view of the conflicting decisions of this Court on the issue as to “whether payment of court fee on the plaint being a jurisdictional issue has to be decided as a preliminary issue”, the matter has been referred to the file of the Chief Justice for constituting a larger bench in order to settle the law.

2. Since all the decisions on this issue have been rendered by learned single Judges of this Court, the matter has been listed before the Division Bench for answering the reference.

3. In the order of reference, the learned single Judge has pointed out the conflicting views taken by different courts, which can be summarized hereinbelow.

4. In one set of decisions, viz. 2003 (1) C.T.C. 87, 2003 (4) C.T.C. 268, 2005 (2) T.L.N.J. 102, 2008

(1) M.L.J. 75, the learned Judges held that the issue of court fee and valuation cannot be decided as a preliminary issue. Whereas, in another set of decisions, viz. 2001 (2) C.T.C. 411, 2002 (2) C.T.C. 513 and 2006 (5) C.T.C. 341, the learned Judges held that the question of court fee can be decided as a preliminary issue. It would be appropriate to discuss these cases decided by the learned single Judges.

5. The first