The Court affirmed that multiple petitioners in a writ action must pay separate Court Fees unless a jural relationship exists, while also asserting existing circulars as non-mandatory.

ORDER :

P.SAM KOSHY, J.

The instant writ petition has been filed by the petitioner (party-in-person) under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying the Court for the following reliefs, viz.,

(1) to permit the petitioner to pay only single set of fee i.e., One hundred rupees, having common cause as per Rule 4A of Writ Proceeding Rules 1977 of Telangana High Court to be followed, and to not collect excess fee from petitioner illegally irrespective of number of petitioners;

(2) to direct the respondents to not insist on processing fee, covers and rule nisi or CMP forms if the copy of the petitions have been served on the parties as per the Rule 6B and 7 of 1977 Writ Rules of Telangana High Court and to follow the law;

(3) to declare that the Court Fee for Writ (One hundred Rupees) is the only legitimate Court fee, and that separate Rs.15/- (Fifteen rupees) collection for order copy citing Court Copy fee is illegal as it is the right of the Writ Petitioner to get the order copy for the petition filed;

(4) to declare that the person, who is as Advocate, need not be insisted upon to appear before a Scrutiny committee in case of party-in-person filing Writ Petition as per the Rules of the Telangana High Court Writ Rules 1977 and also the person who is authorized to practice law under Section 30 of Advocates Act also can represent themselves and direct section to respondents to register our Writ petition if they are in order (if ID card is annexed to documents proving to be Advocate); and

(5) to declare any standing orders, memo, circular, letter, guideline, scheme, policy, etc do not have force of law, under Article 13 of Constitution of India particularly when the said instructions add financial burden on the Advocates and implement the Writ Proceeding Rules 1977 of Telangana High Court strictly.

2. Heard Mr.Vijay Gopal (Party-in-Person) and Mr.G. Vidyasagar, learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of Mrs.K. Udaya Sri, learned counsel for the respondents.

3. On the previous occasion, learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of respondents, had taken time to get instructions in the matter.

4. To-day when the matter is taken up for hearing, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the respondents, submitted that since the relief sought for primarily seems to be for adhering to the Rules that have been framed and applicable to the High Court, a separate formal counter-affidavit may not be required and therefore he is ready to argue the case basing on the rule position.

5. In the given circumstances, we proceed to decide the five reliefs (mentioned supra) one by one.

Re. : Relief No.1 :-

6. The first relief that the petitioner herein is seeking is in respect of insistence by the Registry of the High Court in a writ petition which has got more than one petitioner and where each of the petitioner need to file individual Court Fee though a common single Writ Petition is filed consisting of more than one petitioner.

7. In this connection, the party-in-person relied on Clause (11)(s) of Schedule II of the Telangana Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1956, wherein the Court Fees determined for a writ petition under Article 226 other than a Writ of Habeas Corpus or a petition under Article 227 has been notified as Rs.100/-. However, this was subsequently amended as per Rule 4-A of the WRIT PROCEEDINGS RULES , 1977, which Rule as on date reads as under, viz.,

“4-A. Two or more persons raising common questions of law or persons have a co