Civil Revision No. 5493 of 2004 (O&M) 1 In the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh Civil Revision No. 5493 of 2004 (O&M) Date of decision: 24.10. 2009 Rajni Sharma ......petitioner Versus Pushkar Dutt Tayagi and another .......Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MRS. JUSTICE SABINA Present: Mr.A.R.Takkar, Advocate. for the petitioner. None for the respondents. **** SABINA, J. Plaintiff-petitioner filed a suit for declaration that she was owner in possession of the land in dispute and that the sale deed dated 25.2.1987 in favour of the defendant No.1 and further sale deed dated 10.8.2001 executed by defendant No.1 in favour of defendant No.2 in respect of the suit land were illegal null and void and had been executed by playing fraud without any consideration and were not binding on the rights of the plaintiff. An application was filed by the petitioner for leading evidence on the point of sufficiency of court fee and another application under Order 7 Rule 11 of the Civil Revision No. 5493 of 2004 (O&M) 2 Code of Civil Procedure was filed by the defendant. Vide the impugned order dated 27.8.2004, passed by the Civil Judge (Jr.Divn.), Jagadhari, the application filed by the petitioner was dismissed with costs and she was given one month's time, to affix ad valorem court fee, from the date of order. Hence, the present revision petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India. Learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that in the present case the court fee was not liable to be affixed as per the market value mentioned in the sale deed but was required to pay the court fee in terms of Section 7 (v) of the Court Fees Act as amended by the State of Haryana. In support of his arguments, learned counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance on the decision of the Apex Court in Mahdaorao and other v. The State of Maharashtra, AIR 1972 Supreme Court 45. Para 4 of the said judgment reads as under:- “ It appears that according to the view of the High Court the Court-fee is payable under S.6 (I) (v) even with regard to land on its value which according to the counsel for the State would be the market value. In our judgment Section 6 (i) (v) does not admit of any such method of calculating the court fee where the subject matter is land. There is no doubt that where the subject matter is a house or a garden, in a suit for possession the court fee has to be paid according to the market value of the house or garden Civil Revision No. 5493 of 2004 (O&M) 3 but where the subject matter is land the Court fee has to be calculated according to what has been provided in the sub-clauses (a), (b) and ( c) with regard to different categories of land. It may be that in Clause (v) the land which has not been assessed to land revenue is not covered by sub-cls.(a), (b) and (c ) but then the Court fee will have to be calculated under some other provision of the Act but not on the basis of the value of the land. After hearing learned counsel for the petitioner, I am of the opinion that there is no ground for interference by this Court. In the present case, the plaintiff has sought cancellation of sale deed in question. Vide order dated 27.11.2003, the trial Court held that the plaintiff-petitioner was required to pay ad valorem court fee on the plaint as per the value within a period of one month from the date of order. Admittedly, the said order was confirmed by this Court vide order dated 16.12.2003. In these circumstances, the learned trial Court rightly held that the issue with regard to affixation of Court fee could not be re-opened at the instance of the petitioner. During the course of arguments, learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the impugned order has since been complied with as the ad valorem court fee has been affixed on the plaint. Since the petitioner has sought cancellation of sale deed, the petitioner is required to affix the court fee as per the value of the property mentioned in the sale deed. The judgment relied upon by Civil Revision No. 5493 of 2004 (O&M) 4 learned counsel for the petitioner fails to advance the case of the petitioner as it is based on different facts. Hence, there is no force in the contentions raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner. Thus, the impugned order does not suffer from any material irregularity and illegality warranting interference by this Court. Accordingly, this petition is dismissed. (SABINA) JUDGE October 24, 2009 anita