April 11, 2019: Bombay High Court has held that a litigant is entitled for the full refund of his court fee if the matter is settled through the Lok Adalat. It rejected the contention of the government that the litigant was only entitled for one fourth of the total court fee.
Justice Oka speaking for a two judges bench has passed the judgment titled Maharishi Shankarrao Mohite vs The State of Maharashtra on 02.04.2019.
A matter was settled in Lok Adalat and there after the trial court allowed the petitioner to get his entire court fee but on a challenge being made, but subsequently there was some inspection of district court in which certain objections were raised and in view of the same, the court reduced the refund to 25 %. The petitioner was called upon to repay the balance.
When the petitioner challenge, the High Court was confronted with the basic question applicability of court fee act. There is a central court fee act and also there is state court fee act. Central act provides for 100% refund whereas state act provides for 25% refund.
The High Court then opined that since Section-21 of Legal Service Authority Act talks about the central court fee act, the same shall apply instead of state court fee act.
The Court observed "In the light of the aforesaid two decisions, sub-Section (1) of Section 21 of the Act will have to be interpreted. On plain reading of sub-Section (1) of Section 21, the provisions regarding the refund of Court fees in relation to the cases settled before the Lok Adalat under the Central Court Fees Act, have been specifically incorporated in sub-Section (1) of Section 21. The effect of such incorporation is that the provisions of Section 16 of the Central Court Fees Act stand incorporated in sub-Section (1) of Section 21 and Section 16 has now become a part of sub-Section (1) of Section 21. As pointed out earlier, Section 16 is applicable when a suit referred by the Court to one of the three modes of settlement under Section 89 of the CPC, which includes Lok Adalat, is settled. Thus, it is crystal clear that once there is a settlement of a suit before the Lok Adalat, by virtue of incorporation of the provisions of Section 16 of the Central Court Fees Act into sub-Section (1) of Section 21, the plaintiff in a suit settled before the Lok Adalat by an Award of a Lok Adalat, will be entitled to 100% refund of Court fees".
Read the judgment here:
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