Court fees to be paid in a suit for declaration of communal right
Silabhadra Sastry Advocate
(Querist) 20 July 2013
This query is : Resolved
Dear Friends,
In a contested case 04 persons being the Villagers, have filed a Suit as Plaintiffs in representative capacity u/s 91 C.P.C., before the Civil Judge Senior Division,Bhubaneswar,Odisha, praying for Declaration of Communal Right over 10 acres of prime city based private land, which is recorded in last settlement in favour of the Defendants in Home Stead status.In this case the plaintiffs are claiming that as they have been using the afforesaid land for various public/communal purposes like arranging,Mela,Dussera,sports etc. the communal right should be declared over the land.Hence they have valued the suit land at only Rs.15,000/- for entire area to avoid huge court fees .As per their claim the suit can be valued at the lowest amount as it is for declaration of communal right, so they are not entitled to pay huge court fees.But during course of hearing it has come to knowledge of court that the property would be more that 10 crores.So the court has suomotu directed the plaintiffs to pay Declaratory court fees as per valuation of the land.But the plaintiffs have challenged the lower courts order in high court under the ground court fees are not payable as per the value of land in a suit for Declaration of communal rights.
So I request you all to supply me some citations/ Judgement of Supreme Court / High Court on the issues that The Advolrum / Declaratory Court fees is also payable in a suit for Declaration of Communal right as per the bench mark value(govt. value) of the land.Pl help me at the earliest if you can.
Adv Archana Deshmukh
(Expert) 20 July 2013
Court fee laws for every state is different. Which state you are talking about?
R.K Nanda
(Expert) 20 July 2013
search indiankanoon.com
Rajendra K Goyal
(Expert) 21 July 2013
Search Indiankanoon .com for the purpose.
prabhakar singh
(Expert) 21 July 2013
They are right.The order is wrong.They do not claim ownership of land in suit.The relief they claim over subject matter of suit is not capable of valuation in money terms by any arithmetics hence only minimum
prescribed fixed fees is payable irrespective of any valuation of property.
