CR No.7233 of 2008 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA, CHANDIGARH CR No.7233 of 2008 Date of decision March 9, 2009 Ved Parkash and another ....... Petitioners Versus Kirshan Singh and others ........Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN Present:- Mr. Sudhir Aggarwal, Advocate for the petitioner. **** 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? 2. To be referred to the reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest? K. Kannan, J (oral). 1. The proper valuation and payment of Court fee in suit which was objected to by the defendant is the subject matter of revision before this Court. 2. The defendant's contention before the Court below which was rejected, in my view correctly rejected. There are several averments in the plaint which refer to the transaction of sale by the first defendnat to defendant Nos. 2 and 3 as not valid. According to the defendant the plaintiff's contention was that the sale deed was fraudulent and void and that there are several averments in the plaint which detail the circumstances under which the plaintiff claims that the transaction is not valid. He refers to the decisions of this Court in Jagdish Vs. Jagat Pal reported in 2003 (2) Civil Court cases 635 and Ram Chander Vs. Rattan Lal reported in 2002 (2) Latest Judicial Reports 834. In the former decision the plaintiff was challenging the alienation made by the CR No.7233 of 2008 2 grandfather as being without any legal necessity. In the latter, the suit had been filed for possession and for mandatory injunction. Both these decisions do not help the revision petitioner in any way. As the suit by the coparcener challenging the alienation by a senior member of the family is not a void transaction at the inception, it would be a transaction which he could impeach either as without legal necessity or one made without benefit of the family. Such type of decisions are not in the same league as claimed by the plaintiff who characterizes an act of transfer by a defendant as wholly invalid while in a transaction by a senior member of the joint family the junior member in the family could be bound till transaction is set aside. A plaintiff who challenges the act of sale of a defendant as not binding on him would not require in law to be set aside. In such a case the plaintiff does not claim under the defendant nor does law makes a transaction binding on the plaintiff by the act of defendant. In the second judgment referred to by him, the Court was sounding a word of caution that a mere prayer would not be the criterion for deciding on the appropriate Court fee payable. The fabric of the plaint with the necessary averments shall be the guiding principle for determining the appropriate Court fee that is payable. 3. The suit which is filed for the relief of injunction would not require ad valorem Court fee to be paid as canvassed by the plaintiff. The decision taken by the Court below is appropriate and the Civil revision is dismissed. (K. KANNAN) JUDGE March 9, 2009 archana