R. Palanisamy vs R. Shanmugham

Honourable Mr. Justice R.S. Ramanathan

The plaintiff in O.S.No. 2406 of 2008 on the file of the I Additional District Munsif Court, Coimbatore is the revision petitioner. The plaintiff

filed the suit for declaration that the sale deed dated 31.3.2003 in Document No. 726 of 2003 was obtained fraudulently and the document is null

and void and for injunction. He valued the suit at Rs. 3000/- and paid the Court fee u/s 25(d) of the Tamil Nadu Court Fees and Suits Valuation

Act for the declaratory relief. The respondent/ defendant filed an application under Order 7 Rule 11 of C.P.C., stating that the suit has not been

properly valued and the declaratory relief ought to have been valued u/s 40 of the Tamil Nadu Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act and on that

ground the suit has to be rejected.

The Court below accepted the contention of the respondent/defendant and directed the plaintiff/revision petitioner herein to value the suit u/s 40

of the Tamil Nadu Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act and that order is challenged in this revision.

It is submitted by the learned counsel for the revision petitioner that the revision petitioner did not admit the execution of the sale deed and he

admitted the execution of the mortgage deed and by playing fraud the sale deed was obtained from him and therefore there is no need to value the

relief of declaration u/s 40 of the Tamil Nadu Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act and he relied upon the Judgement reported in Alamelu alias

Chinnakannammal and Others Vs. Manickkammal, in support of his contention.

I am unable to accept the contention of the learned counsel for the revision petitioner. In the reported case, the facts are different. In that case

the plaintiff agreed to execute the Will and when he went to the Registrar''s office for registering the Will, he realized that the document was a

settlement and therefore she refused to register the document and later the document was compulsorily registered. In that context it was held that

the executant was not a party and therefore there is no need to value the suit u/s 40 of the Tamil Nadu Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act.

But in this case, the petitioner admitted the execution of the document and the defence taken by him was that he executed only a mortgage deed

and by practising fraud the defendant got the sale deed. Once the execution is admitted and the document is sought to be declared as null and void,

the Court fee has to be paid only u/s 40 of the Tamil Nadu Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act and the petitioner has to pay the Court fee on the

value of the consideration stated in the document. Hence, I do not find any reason to interfere with the order of the Court below and the revision is

dismissed. In the result, the Civil Revision Petition is dismissed. Consequently, the connected Miscellaneous Petition is closed.