JUDGMENT

1. A court-fee of Rs. 6740 has been paid on the memorandum of appeal in this case and the Chief Inspector of Stamps has reported that there is a deficiency of Rs. 3260. The property claimed in the suit was detailed in four Schedules, B, C, D and E, and there was also a claim for mesne profits. The Chief Inspector was of opinion that the suit was based on separate and distinct causes of action in respect of the various properties and therefore falls within the purview of Section 17, Court-Fees Act, Part 1 of which reads:

In any suit in which two or more separate and distinct causes of action are joined, the plaint or memorandum of appeal shall be chargeable with the aggregate amount of the fees with which the plaints, or memoranda of appeal would be chargeable under this Act, if separate suits were instituted in respect of each such cause of action.

2. The Chief Inspector hag therefore taken the valuation of the property in each schedule and calculated that court-fee is due in respect of each as follows:

TABLE

3. The total comes to Rs. 11,815, but as the maximum court-fee now payable on a memorandum of the appeal is Rs. 10,000 he claims on behalf of the state only the differences between this amount and the amount paid. The plaint shows that the appellant claimed this property as the entire estate left by Raj Gobardhan Singh, who died on 8th March 1906. This property, he alleged, was inherited by the three widows of Raj Gobardhan Singh, the last of whom died on 15th May 1925. The defendant is the son of Raj Gobardhan Singh's daughter. He claims the property under a will of Raj Gobardhan Singh. By this will the latter left most of his property to the defendant. A life interest in ten villages, however, the property comprised in Schedule D, was left to a reversioner named Raj Bachan Singh who died on 8th July, 1935. It is to be noted that all these ten villages are included also in other schedules some in Schedule B and some in Schedule C. The appellant disputes the validity of this will, but contends that even if it is valid he is entitled to these ten villages on the death of Raj Bachan Singh, as the nearest reversioner of Raj Gobardhan Singh. It was in view of this alternative plea in regard to the property in Schedule D that he stated in para. 15 of the plaint that the cause of action accrued on the death of the last widow on 15th May 1925, and also on the death of Baj Bachan Singh on 8th July 1935. Apart from this alternative plea he claimed the whole property "under the provisions of the Oudh Estates Act, the sanad, the Hindu law and the custom as the only and the nearest reversioner alive," the cause of action accruing on the death of the last widow. Property in other schedules was distinguished in this way. Schedule B consisted of 32 villages in two taluqas. In these Raj Gobardhan Singh had full proprietary interest. Schedule O consisted of 31 villages in two other taluqas and in respect of this property the appellant alleged that Raj Gobardhan Singh had only a life estate under a will; consequently he could not dispose of it by will, and though the appellant speaks of it as being inherited by the widows with the other property he also alleges that their possession was without title. Schedule E consists of two houses; these were not included in Raj Gobardhan Singh's will.

4. Most of the property was claimed primarily by the appellant under a primogeniture sanad. The two houses, he alleged, followed the taluqdari property. "We do not think that the possibility that Raj Gobardhan Singh's title may not have been the same in respect of all the property, or the fact that the appellant has put forward alternative pleas in respect of some properties warrants the view that separate and distinct causes of action were joined in suit. The appellant's main case was that he was entitled to all this property under the primogeniture sanad; that is there is in a sense one main cause of action in respect of all the property; if som