( 1 ) THIS is a Letters Patent Appeal from an order of Shiv Dayal J holding that an appeal preferred by the appellants before us, against a decision of the Additional district Judge, Ambikapur under Section 30 of the Land Acquisition Act is a regular first appeal and should be registered as such and directing the appellants to state the valuation of the appeal and pay ad valorem court-fees on it accordingly

( 2 ) THE material facts are that in acquisition proceedings of certain lands situated in village Patna, tahsil Baikanthpur an amount of Rs 7196. 70 was determined as compensation for the land acquired. In those proceedings a dispute arose between the parties to the appeal as regards the apportionment of the compensation. The respondents claimed that they were entitled to the full amount of the compensation and that the appellants had no claim to receive the compensation amount. The Land Acquisition Officer referred this dispute about apportionment to the Court of the Additional District Judge, Ambikapur, under Section 30 of the land Acquisition Act, 1894, for decision. The learned Additional District Judge held that the respondents were entitled to get the entire amount of Rs. 7196. 70 rejecting in toto the claim of the appellants to get any amount of the compensation. The appellants, therefore, preferred an appeal in this Court in which the order before us in appeal was passed by the learned Single Judge.

( 3 ) THE short question that arises in this appeal is as regards the court-fee payable on the appeal preferred by the appellants. The learned Single Judge, relying on ramachandra v. Ramachandra. AIR 1922 PC 80, held that the decision of the learned Additional District Judge on a reference under Section 30 of the Land acquisition Act was a decree and that, therefore, the appeal preferred before him by the appellants was a regular appeal and ad valorem court-fee was payable on the valuation of the appeal. In AIR 1922 PC 80 (Supra) the Privy Council has observed:--

"the award as constituted by statute is nothing, but an award which states the area of the land, the compensation to be allowed and the apportionment among the persons interested in the land of whose claims the Collector has information meaning thereby people whose interests are not in dispute but from the moment when the sum has been deposited in Court under Section 31 (2) the functions of the award have ceased; and all that is left is a dispute between interested people as to the extent of their interest. Such dispute forms no part of the award, and it would indeed be strange if a controversy between two people as to the nature of their respective interests in a piece of land should enjoy certain rights of appeal, which would be wholly taken away when the piece of land was represented by a sum of money paid into Court. "

The decision in AIR 1922 PC 80 (supra) was explained by the Privy Council in a later case, Bhagwati v. Ram Kali. AIR 1939 PC 133 thus:-"in that case some question arose as to whether any appeal lay to His majesty in Council in a case where the determination of the Judge ended in an award and not in a decree The Board took the view that where the matter referred was not the adequacy of the amount of compensation awarded, hut a dispute between the persons claiming compensation involving, it may be, difficult questions of title, the resultant decision was not an award but a decree. "( 4 ) IN our judgment the learned Single Judge rightly held that the decision of the learned Additional District Judge was a decree and that, therefore, ad valorem court-fee was payable on the appeal. That apart, even under Section 8 of the court-fees Act the amount of court-fee payable on the appeal preferred by the appellants was the amount they claimed as compensation. That provision lays down that the amount of court-fee payable on a memorandum of appeal against an order relating to compensation under any Act for the time being in force for the acquisiti