The proper sum to allow as pleader's fee is what was actually paid or what might reasonably have been paid, whichever is less. Any amendment of the decree of the lower appellate Court must be based on the real value of the suit and not just the arithmetical process used to arrive at the fee.

Hallifax, A J C—The use of Latin words in legal matters is seldom more convenient than sticking to one or other of the three languages which are prescribed for use in the Courts of the Central Provinces and Berar, and then only slightly, but it gives rise to many inconveniences in many cases. Apart from that, it is hardly consistent to speak of this Court taking action of its own motion in moving it to do so by the submission of records with the suggestion that the taking of that action should be considered.

2. The idea underlying the application made in the District Judge's Court is that the only pleader's fee that can be allowed as between party and party is the sum calculated to the last pie on the valuation of the suit according to the rates stated in the rules made under the Legal Practitioners Act. In most cases that was a wholly improper sum to allow under the old rules and it is so in many oases under the amended rule. The proper sum is what was actually paid or what might reasonably have been paid, whichever is less. The rules are a good general guide to the sum that might reasonably have been paid, hut no more.

3. The fee allowed in the District Judge's decree was Rs. 152-8-0, and that calculated according to the rules then in force on the stated valuation of the property in dispute was Rs. 52-8-0. It was by accident that the common absurdity was avoided of a Judge solemnly stating in the decree that the pleader's fee which, in his opinion, was paid or ought to have been paid was a sum ending in a number of pies not even making an integral number of pice. It is, however, obvious that neither sum was the proper sum to allow, and indeed that the learned Judge who passed the decree never considered it was or thought about the matter at all. There is then no more reason for reducing the Rs. 152-8-0 to Rs. 52-8-0 than for raising the Rs. 52-8-0 to Rs. 152-8-0. Indeed, if any change ought to be made, the very first would be the removal of the odd Rs. 2-8-0 at the end,

4. There are several factors to be considered in fixing the pleader's fee, in addition to the valuation of the suit, and even that must be its real value, not the arbitrary or artificial valuation which is often sufficient for all other purposes In this case the dispute was over the right to separate possession of a half of 74.67 acres of land, and the pleader's fee allowed in this Court was Rs. 200. Before any amendment of the decree of the lower appellate Court can be possible it must be shown that the sum of Rs. 152-8-0 is more than was paid or might reasonably have been paid by the plaintiff to his pleader in that Court, not merely that the arithmetical process by which the Judge nominally (and his Reader actually) arrived at that sum was wrongly applied.

5. Even if there were any apparent cause for altering the decree, that could probably be done only in a review, and an application for that was time barred when the present application was presented. But there is no such cause at all .and I decline to interfere.

Final Result : Allowed