Rejection of Plaint--Inadequate Court Fee--No revision petition before High Court would be maintainable at the hands of the defendants, unless the question of court fee involves the jurisdiction of Court.

Mr. Rameshwar Singh Malik, J.: (Oral) - Instant civil revision, at the hands of defendant, is directed against the impugned order dated 7.11.2016 (Annexure P-5) passed by learned trial court, dismissing the application of the petitioners-defendants under Order 7 Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure (‘CPC’ for short), seeking rejection of plaint or in the alternative directing plaintiff to pay ad valorem court fee.

2. Heard learned counsel for the petitioners.

3. Placing reliance on the following judgments of this Court, learned counsel for the petitioner submits that learned trial court misdirected itself, while passing the impugned order, which has resulted in miscarriage of justice. He further submits that in the circumstances of the case, learned trial court ought to have rejected the plaint or in the alternative, plaintiff- respondent ought to have been directed to pay ad-valorem court fee. He prays for setting aside the impugned order, by allowing the present revision petition. Judgments relied upon are as under:-

M.S.Chemical Industries Ltd. Vs. Hindustan Commercial Bank Ltd., 1956 AIR (Punjab) 214.

Jatinder Nath Sharma and another VS. Vijay Gupta and another, 2006 (4) RCR (civil) 539.

Ranjit Kaur and others Vs. Punjab State Electricity Board and another, [2006(4) Law Herald (P&H) 3002] : 2007 (1) RCR (civil) 686.

Manjeet Singh Vs. Beant Sharma, [2012(3) Law Herald (P&H) 2707] : 2012 (44) RCR (civil) 118.

Jiwan Kumar Modi Vs. Nand Kishore Bhandari, [2013(5) Law Herald (P&H) 4370 : 2013(3) Land L.R. 443 (P&H)] : 2014 (9) RCR (civil) 2197.

Dr. Bimal Anjuman VS. Aasra Foundation (Registered), Muktsar, 2014 (1) PLR 624.

Sunita Rani and another Vs. State of Punjab and others, 2015 (3) PLR 580.

4. Having heard learned counsel for the petitioner at considerable length, after careful perusal of record of the case and giving thoughtful consideration to the contentions raised, this Court is of the considered opinion that since the present revision petition, at the hands of the defendants, is without any merit, the same is liable to be dismissed. The impugned order passed by learned trial court has not been found suffering from any patent illegality or perversity. To say so, reasons are more than one, which are being recorded hereinafter.

5. In view of the law laid down by Hon’ble the Supreme Court in Rathnavarmaraja V. Vimla, AIR 1961 SC 1299, first question that falls for consideration of this Court, is as to whether the present revision petition, at the hands of defendant, would be maintainable or not.

6. On merits, learned trial court has not been found misdirecting itself, as sought to be argued on behalf of the petitioner, while passing the impugned order and the same deserves to be upheld.

7. In fact, object of the Court Fee Act, 1970, was to collect revenue for the benefit of the State. Thus, question involving court fee would be between the plaintiff and the State and it would hardly grant any right to the contesting parties to challenge the alleged inadequacy of court fee either paid or to be paid by the plaintiff.

8. Exactly similar issue fell for consideration before this Court in Jaspal Singh and another Vs. Gurbinder Singh, 2015 (3) PLR 97. Following the law laid down by Hon’ble the Supreme Court in Vimla’s case (supra) and also two Full Benches of this Court in Krishan Kumar Grover Vs. Parameshri Devi, (1966) 68 PLR 54 and Arjan Motors Vs. Girdhara Singh, 1978 AIR (Punjab) 25 as well as another judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Shamsher Singh VS. Rajinder Prashad and others, 1973 (2) SCC 524, this Court in para 4 and 5 of its judgment in Jaspal Singh’s case (supra), held as under:-

“The maintainability of the revision itself, firstly, comes under a cloud in view of the observations of the Apex Court in Rathnavarmaraja Vs. Vimla AIR 1961 SC 1299 wherein it was noticed that entertaining petitions preferred before the High Court in exercise of revisional jurisdiction and stalling progress in the suits f