Ittiyath Govindan vs Rev. Fr. Joseph

Koshi, C.J.—The point raised on this revision is whether where a Court while giving a decree to the Plaintiff directs that unless the additional court-fee livable on the plaint is remitted within a period specified the suit shall stand dismissed, can after expiry of that said period extend the time for payment. The view that commends itself to us is that with the expiration of the period the order will work itself out with the result that the suit will stand dismissed and that there will be no pending proceeding before Court for it to extend tire time for payment of court-fee.

Learned Counsel for the Petitioner invited of attention to certain decisions which hold that except in cases contemplated by the specific provisions'' the Court-fees Act the Court is not competent direct additional court-fee to be paid and that the debtors the said Act the Court directs payment-additional court-fee with the penalty by way of missal of suit attached for non-payment, that provision can well be ignored and further proceedings the. litigation proceeded with as if there is no sue direction at all.

We regret we cannot subscribe to this view. Court has jurisdiction to decide a cause before rightly as well as wrongly and if the decision happen to go wrong it is not open to the parties or to Court itself to ignore a part of the decision and given effect to the rest thereof. The party aggrieved the wrong decision must take appropriate steps ml vacate the decision and cannot be allowed to ignore it. It cannot be said that the lower Court had no jurisdiction to dismiss the redemption suit before it.

It may well be that the ground of the dismissal is wrong, but there is a remedy provided by way of review of the judgment or appeal to rectify the error. In this particular case even a second suit for redemption will not be barred. Counsel for the Petitioner conceded that Section 148, CPC had no application to the case, but his contention was that the lower Court, should have invoked its inherent powers to set right the error.

In the first place it was not pointed out to the lower Court that it was in error in directing that unless the additional court-fee demanded was paid the suit will stand dismissed. What that Court was asked to do was to extend the time for payment after the order had worked itself out resulting in the dismissal of the suit. Further, in a matter where the Code contains specific provisions lo set right the error (if be an error) aim the aggrieved party has other remedies open to him we do not think this to be a proper case for the exercise of the inherent powers of the Court. The revision is accordingly dismissed but in the circumstances with it costs. Order accordingly.