Smt. Rashmi Mongare vs Sunil Chaudhari
2021 Latest Caselaw 2304 MP

                                1                             MA.No.1058/2021



           THE HIGH COURT OF MADHYA PRADESH
                      Heard through Video Conferencing
                             M.A.No.1058/2021
     (Smt. Rashmi Mongare & others vs Sunil Chaudhari & others)

Jabalpur, Dated 14.06.2021.
      Shri Sanjay Saini, learned counsel for the appellant.

      Heard on I.A.No.3208/2021 which is an application for ignoring
the objection raised by the Registry of this Court regarding payment of
deficit Court fees.
2-    Facts

of the case, in brief, are that on account of death of their husband/father/son-Jitendra in a motor accident, all the appellants filed an application before the Motor Accident Claim Tribunal, Mandla for compensation. After the trial, their application was allowed. Learned MACT awarded Rs.8,80,000/- compensation. Being dissatisfied with the amount of compensation, all the appellants preferred the present appeal before this Court affixing a Court fees of Rs.100/- claiming that since the amount of compensation be enhanced by this Court is uncertain at this stage, the Court fees to be paid also cannot be ascertained. Therefore, they are not liable to pay the Court fees at this moment and they will pay the same after determination of the enhanced amount by this Court at the time of final disposal of this appeal.

3- Learned counsel has placed reliance on the following judgments :

(i) Bhola Prasad vs. Rakesh @ Bhura Rai (M.A.No.254/2010, decided on 06.11.2012); (ii) Ramcharan vs. Rameshwar Prasad Mishra (M.A.No.1843/2011); (iii) Preetam Lal Garg vs. Vijay Kumar Gujrati (M.A.No.852/2015); (iv) Smt. Sushma Dhurve vs. Dayal Singh

(M.A.No.5539/2019); (v) Suresh Maravi vs. Akash Singh Rajput (M.A.No.1996/2020); (vi) Ravi Shankar vs. Arjun Lal (M.A.No.2187/2020) and (vii) Saleem vs. Amar Singh (M.A.No.3379/2019-Indore Bench).

4- Heard the counsel at length.

5- The question raised by the appellant is squarely covered by order dated 07.06.2021 passed in M.A.No.781/2015 (Ramratan Singh vs. Janakchand Rana, decided on 06.09.2017) and M.A.No.1057/2021 (Smt. Jalso Bai vs. Surendra Kumar, decided on 07.06.2021); wherein, the Coordinate Bench of this Court has held that the appellants are liable to pay the Court fees on the enhancement of the compensation amount "Claimed" by them and not on the amount actually "Enhanced" by the Court at the time of final adjudication of their claim. The order passed in M.A.No.1057/2021 (supra) reads as under :

"Shri Sanjay Saini, learned counsel for the appellants.

Heard on I.A.No.3211/2021, which is an application for ignoring the objection raised by the registry of this Court regarding payment of deficit Court fees.

Brief facts of the case which are relevant for disposal of aforesaid application are that the appellants filed this Miscellaneous Appeal against the award dated 22/01/2021 passed by MACT, Mandla in Claim Case No.778/2018 for enhancement of compensation awarded by the Claims Tribunal to the applicants. This Miscellaneous Appeal is for enhancement of a sum of Rs.6,00,000/-. Office put the objection that appeal is not maintainable without payment of Court fees on that enhanced amount i.e. Rs.6,00,000/-.

Present application has been filed for overruling that objection.

Learned counsel for the appellants submitted that according to Article 11 of Schedule II of the Court Fees Act 2.5% Court fees should be paid on the enhanced amount.

The amount claimed by the appellants in the appeal cannot

be called as enhanced amount, but the enhanced amount will be such as would be given by the Court after adjudication of the claim of the appellants. Registry wrongly demanded 2.5% Court fees on the amount which is claimed by the appellants in the memo of appeal. There is no certainty as to what amount will be awarded by the Court. Appellants are only required to pay Court fee on the amount which will be determined as enhanced amount by this Court at the time of judgement of this appeal. So appellants may be allowed to make payment of Court fee at the time of final decision of the appeal on enhanced compensation, which may be determined by the Court. In this regard learned counsel also placed reliance on this Court's judgments passed in Preetam Lal Garg Vs. Vijay Kumar Gujrati, passed in MA.No.852/2015 vide order dated 21/12/2016, Smt. Sushma Dhurve & Others Vs. Dayal Singh & Others passed in MA.No.5539/2019 vide order dated 19/12/2019, Suresh Maravi Vs. Akash Singh Rajput & Others passed in MA.No.1996/2020 vide order dated 10/09/2020 and Ravi Shankar Vs. Arjun Lal & Others passed in M.A.No.2187/2020 vide order dated 23/09/2020.

This Court has gone through the record and arguments advanced by the counsel of the appellants. This appeal has been filed by the appellants u/s 173 Motor Vehicle Act. The memo of appeal preferred u/s 173 Motor Vehicle Act is required to be affixed with Court Fees as per Article 11 of Schedule II of Court fees Act, which reads as thus:-

"(a) when presented to the High Court-

(i) By the claimant for enhancement of 2.5 percent of the amount of award passed by the Motor enhanced amount Accident Claims Tribunal. Claimed in appeal.

From the wordings of the provisions of Article 11 of Schedule II of Court fees Act "2.5 percent of the enhanced amount claimed in appeal" it is clear that court fees will be paid on that enhanced amount which is claimed by the appellants in their appeal memo and not on the amount which will be determined by the Court after adjudication of the claim of the appellants and the court fees is payable at the time of presentation of the appeal not after judgement.

Section 4 of the Court Fees Act, 1870 bars the Court from receiving plaint/appeal if it does not bear the proper court fees. Although Section 149 CPC acts as an exception to the said bar and enables the Court to permit the plaintiff

to pay the deficit Court fees at a subsequent stage. But this Section also does not give unfettered power to Court for giving time to applicant for paying Court fee.

Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of A. Nawab John & Ors vs. V. N. Subramaniyam, (2012) 7 SCC 738 in pera 23 of its judgement observed as thus:-

"the Section 149 CPC does not confer an absolute right in favour of a plaintiff to pay the court fee as and when it pleases the plaintiff. It only enables a plaintiff to seek the indulgence of the Court to permit the payment of court fee at a point of time later than the presentation of the plaint. The exercise of the discretion by the Court is conditional upon the satisfaction of the Court that the plaintiff offered a legally acceptable explanation for not paying the court fee within the period of limitation."

Order 7 rule 11 of CPC also provides that the plaint shall be rejected (c) "Âoewhere the relief claimed is properly valued, but the plaint is written upon paper insufficiently stamped, and the plaintiff, on being required by the Court to supply the requisite stamp paper within a time to be fixed by the Court, fails to do so."

The Judgements of this court passed in the case of Smt. Sushma Dhurve & Others Vs. Dayal Singh & Others (MA.No.5539/2019), Suresh Maravi Vs. Akash Singh Rajput & Others (MA.No.1996/2020) (supra) relied by the learned counsel of the applicants do not much help to the appellants. In the aforementioned cases this Court did not lay down any principle that appellants are required to pay court fee only on that amount which enhanced by the court after adjudication of appeal and court fee will be paid after adjudication of the appeal by this court.

Although, this Court in the case of Preetam Lal Garg Vs. Vijay Kumar Gujrati, (MA.No.852/2015) and Ravi Shankar Vs. Arjun Lal & Others (M.A.No.2187/2020) this Court gave the permission to the appellants of these cases that they will be permitted to pay court fees on the enhanced amount after judgement in the appeal. But in these cases also this court did not lay down any principle that appellants are required to pay court fee only on the amount enhanced by the court in the appeal and that the court fee will be paid after adjudication of the appeal by the court. The orders are limited for these cases only.

On the other hand the Division Bench of this Court in the case of Dr. Hajarilal Agrawal vs State Of Madhya Pradesh And Ors. 2006 (4) MPHT 237 turning down the prayer of

appellant that appellant may be allowed to make payment of Court fee at the time of final decision of the appeal on compensation which may be determined by the court and held -

Court fees is payable on valuation of appeal. The amount for which adjudication is sought not on determined, on the initial stage where Court-fee is required to be paid.

Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of K.C. Skaria Vs. Govt. of State of Kerala & Anr. reported in AIR 2006 SC 811 held that non-payment of Court fees cannot be claimed as a matter of convenience or on the ground of hardship or on the ground that person suing did not know the exact amount due to him as that will open the floodgates for converting several types of money claims into suits for accounts to avoid payment of court fees at the time of institution.

From the above discussion it is clear that the appeal is not maintainable without payment of Court fees on the claimed enhanced amount i.e. Rs.6,00,000/-. If the claimants are unable to pay the Court fee on account of indigency, they can always seek the leave to file an appeal as an indigent person under Order 44 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

Hence I.A.No.3211/2021 is hereby rejected sans merit and appellants are directed to pay requisite Court fees within fifteen days, failing which this appeal shall stand rejected without reference to the Court.

On payment of requisite court fees by the appellants within fifteen days matter be listed for admission in due course."

6- In view of the aforesaid, the objection raised by the Registry is sustained. Consequently, I.A.No.3208/2021 is dismissed. 7- The judgments rendered in Saleem vs Amar Singh : M.A. No.3379/2019, Ramcharan vs Rameshwar Prasad Mishra : M.A. No.1843/2011 and Bhola Prasad vs Rakesh @ Bhura Rai : M.A. No.254/2010 (supra), cited by the learned counsel for the appellant, are not related to exemption from filing of Court fees at the time of filing of the appeal. Rest of the judgments cited by him have already been

discussed and distinguished in the case of Ramratan Singh vs. Janakchand Rana and Smt. Jalso Bai vs. Surendra Kumar cited supra. 8- The appellant is directed to deposit the deficit Court fees within four weeks, failing which the appeal shall stand dismissed without further reference to this Court.

9- It has been observed that in several appeals filed for enhancement of compensation awarded by the MACT, the appellants are claiming exemption from filing the Court fees and the Registry is raising objection, but the orders passed in M.A.No.781/2015 and M.A.No.1057/2021 (supra) have not been brought to the notice of the Courts. Therefore, Registry is directed to invite the attention of the Courts to the orders passed in the M.A.No.781/2015 and M.A.No.1057/2021 (supra) while raising objection with regard to deficit Court fees in the appeals filed for enhancement of compensation awarded by the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal and place the copy of the same on record for ready reference.

(VIRENDER SINGH) JUDGE anand Digitally signed by VINOD VISHWAKARMA Date: 2021.06.21 12:07:21 +05'30'