Report No. 14

22. Court-Fees

1. Heavy court-fees-a unique feature of India.-

India is, so far as we know, the only country under a modern system of government which deters a person who has been deprived of his property or whose legal rights have been infringed from seeking redress by imposing a tax on the remedy he seeks. Our States provide hospitals which give free treatment to persons who are physically afflicted. But if a person is injured in the matter of his fundamental or other legal rights, we bar his approach to the Courts except on payment of a heavy fee. The fee which we charge is so excessive that the civil litigant seeking to enforce his legal right pays not only the entire cost of the administration of civil justice but also the cost incurred by the State in prosecuting and punishing criminals for crimes with which the civil litigant has no concern.

2. Court-fees absent prior to British rule.-

The Hindu sovereign of yore regarded it his function as the guardian of the State to administer justice without making any charge on the aggrieved party. During the Mohammedan rule prior to the Moghul period and even subsequently, administration of justice by the State was free. It was the advent of the British rule that brought in its wake regulations which imposed court-fees. Initially they do not appear to have been heavy. The proportions which they have now reached as will appear from the figures which we give later make it an extortionate levy.

3. History.-

Court-fees appear to have been first levied in the 18th century by Madras Regulation III of 1782, Bengal Regulation XXXVIII of 1795 and a Bombay Regulation of 1802.

4. Object of the levy-Stopping false suits.-

The Preamble to the Bengal Regulation which was described by Lord Macaulay in 1835 as "the most eminently absurd Preamble that ever was drawn" justified the imposition of these fees on the ground that it would prevent the institution of frivolous litigation. It stated that the imposition of these fees "on the institution and trial of suits and on petitions presented to the Courts is considered as the best mode of putting a stop to this abuse without obstructing the bringing forward of just claims."

5. An untenable ground (Views of Lord Macaulay).-

The justification put forward in the preamble was regarded as-indefensible even as far back as 1835. We quote the views expressed by Lord Macaulay in his minute dated the 25th of June 1835. Referring to Court-fees he stated: "They are desirable, it seems, because they diminish the quantity of litigation. Litigation is an appeal to the Courts of Law, and is a good thing or a bad thing, according as the laws and the Courts are good or bad. If what the Courts administer be injustice, these taxes are defensible or are objectionable only as being far too low. They ought to be raised till they amount to a prohibitory duty, or rather the Courts ought to be shut up and the whole expense of our judicial establishments saved to the State.

But, if what the Courts administer be justice, is justice a thing which the Government ought to grudge to the people? If it be good that there should be laws, if it be good that men should have recourse to the laws, if in proportion as recourse to the laws is made difficult men must either suffer wrongs without redress or redress their wrongs by the strong hand. If in the happiest and most enlightened societies, when all that wisdom and benevolence can do to improve jurisprudence has been done, the great mass of the people must still have some difficulty in resorting to the laws, is it fit that Government should off set purpose add to that difficulty?

I am utterly unable to find any reason for taxing litigation which would not be a reason for prohibiting litigation altogether." Dealing specifically with the alleged purpose of preventing frivolous litigation by the imposition of these fees he stated: "It is undoubtedly a great evil that frivolous and vexatious actions should be instituted. But it is an evil for which the Government has only itself and its agents to blame, and for which it has the power of providing a most sufficient remedy. The real way to prevent unjust suits is to take care that there shall be just decisions. No man goes to law except from the hope of succeeding.

No man hopes to succeed in a bad cause unless he has reason to believe that it will be determined according to bad laws or by bad Judges. Dishonest suite will never be common unless the public entertains an unfavourable opinion of the administration of justice. And the public will never long entertain such an opinion, without good reason. If the subject were not one which most deeply concerned the welfare of the people, there could be no better object of ridicule than a Government which constitutes its Courts of law in such a manner as to give fraud an advantage over honesty, and then fines every man who goes to such infamous places." Dealing with the assertion in the preamble that a tax on a suit would have a tendency to drive away a dishonest plaintiff he stated:

"This is * * * directly in the teeth of all reason. Why did dishonest plaintiffs apply to the Courts before the institution fee was imposed? Evidently because they thought that they had a chance of success. Does the institution fee diminish that chance? Not in the smallest degree. It neither makes pleadings clearer, nor the law plainer, nor the corrupt Judge purer, nor the stupid Judge wiser. It will no doubt drive away dishonest plaintiffs who cannot pay the fee. But it will also drive away honest plaintiffs who are in the same situation.

There is not the smallest reason to think that it will exclude a greater proportion of the one sort than of the other. It divides all plaintiffs into two classes. But the principle of the division is not that honest men are admitted and dishonest men excluded, but that the richer are admitted and the poorer excluded. We might just as well give a man a handful of rice to chew and let him bring his suit if the rice proved moist and send him away if it continued dry as apply this ordeal-for it deserves no other name-as a mode of discriminating between honest and dishonest suitors."

6. Present day objective-Securing revenue.-

However unfounded the view that fees would have a tendency to put a restraint on frivolous litigation, that view at any rate had the merit of seeking to achieve a purpose which was believed to have some relevance to the administration of justice. At the present day the levy of these fees on much heavier scales would seem to find its justification, not in any purpose related to the sound administration of justice, but in the need of the State Governments for revenue.

The Court-fees Act of 1870 fixed, what may be described in view of later happenings, a moderate scale of Court-fees. Since its enactment the financial needs of the Governments have grown enormously. In their anxiety to tap every possible source of revenue the State Governments have not hesitated to go on piling an increasingly heavy burden of taxation on litigation. Most of the States have amended the original Act out of recognition and increased the scale of fees to an oppressive level. The fee is no longer a fee; it is a heavy tax.

7. Unfavourable comments.-

It is not surprising that the scale of these fees should shock the conscience of persons familiar with the administration of justice in the Western countries. A former Chief Justice of Madras observed as follows:

"They" (the litigants) "pay high court-fees and it is beyond question that the aggregate amount is far more than sufficient to cover the total cost of the administration of civil justice. When I came to India, I was amazed at the high court-fees which litigants were called upon to pay, the position being so different in England."1

1. Madras Law Journal 1947, Vol. I, 4 (Journal).

8. Levy unjustified.-

The administration of justice is, it has to be conceded, one of the principal functions of the State in its narrowest concept. Even if the State confined its role only to the maintenance of law and order, the administration of justice would be essential. But the functions of the modern State are far more extensive. A system of administration of justice has to be maintained not only for the maintenance of law and order but also for enabling the citizen to assert his rights against fellow citizens and the State.

This is truer today than ever before because of the growing tendency of all States to project themselves into various social and industrial spheres of society in a manner not dreamt of fifty years ago. It is obvious therefore that a State which levied an exorbitant tax for making available its machinery for the administration of justice to the ordinary citizen fails to perform one of its elementary functions. A modern welfare State cannot with any justification sell the dispensation of justice at a price. Perhaps a small regulatory fee may be justified; but the present scales of court-fees are wholly indefensible.

9. Defence of court-fees.-

It has been urged that the litigant should at any rate bear the burden of maintaining the judicial machinery. As already stated, it is one of the fundamental duties of the State to provide the machinery for the administration of justice. This duty is just as fundamental as its duty to provide for education or health or sanitation. But while we find that all citizens and not only the illiterate or the sick are called upon to pay taxes to meet the charges incurred by the State on these heads, in respect of judicial administration, it is the litigant alone who is being made to pay the entire cost.

The injustice to the civil litigant is the graver because he is made to bear the expenses of administration of criminal justice-which is but an activity of the State for the maintenance of law and order. Civil disputes are also a part of the framework of the social order; to leave them unsettled would promote disorder. No State can therefore claim to be immune from the responsibility of providing suitable curative measures or to insist that it would so provide them only on payment of a fee or tax. If the levy of a fee or a tax is justified, it should be one of general application and not one imposed on the litigant alone.

10. Present rate of court-fees high.-

Unfortunately, however, the view adopted by the State Governments seems to be that the court-fee is an ideal source of revenue, which can be collected without any difficulty and made available for the purposes of general administration. Every State has step by step raised the court-fees higher and higher till the rate has reached an alarmingly high figure. The table below shows the latest position with regard to the ad valorem court-fees charged in each State as compared with the fee fixed by the Central Act of 1870.

Value of plaint in rupees for the purpose of Court fee	Fee leviable under The Court Fees Act, 1870	Andhra Pradesh	Assam	Bihar	Bombay	Kerala	Madhya Pradesh	Madras
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
	Rs.	Rs.	Rs.	Rs.	Rs.	Rs.	Rs.	Rs.
100	7 8 0	1,1 4 0	8 2 0	1,1 4 0	9 6 0	7 8 0	10 0 0	7 8 0
500	37 8 0	56 4 0	56 4 0	56 4 0	46 4 0	37 8 0	50 0 0	37 8 0
1000	75 0 0	112 8 0	112 8 0	112 8 0	93 12 0	75 0 0	100 0 0	75 0 0
5000	275 0 0	412 8 0	412 8 0	412 8 0	43 12 0	275 0 0	420 0 0	375 0 0
10, 000	475 0 0	787 8 8	750 8 0	712 8 0	718 12 0	475 0 0	753 5 0	750 0 0
25000	875 0 0	1,587 8 0	1,350 0 0	1,312 0 0	1,468 12 0	875 0 0	1,486 10 0	1,875 0 0
50000	1,175 0 0	2,387 8 0	2,100 0 0	1,762 8 0	2,031 4 0	1,175 0 0	2,086 10 0	3,750 0 0
75000	1,300 0 0	2,947 8 0	2,287 8 0	1,950 0 0	2,031 4 0	1,175 0 0	2,086 10 0	3,750 0 0
100000	1,425 0 0	427 8 0	2,475 0 0	2,137 8 0	2,406 4 0	1,425 0 0	2,086 10 0	3,750 0 0
300000	2,425 0 0	5,427 8 0	4,012 8 0	3,637 8 0	3,906 4 0	1,425 0 0	2,419 15 4	7,500 0 0
500000	3,000 0 0	7,427 8 0	5,512 8 0	7,683 12 0	5,406 4 0	3,000 0 0	(C)	37,500 0 0
700000	(A)	9,427 8 0	7,012 8 0	9,933 12 0	6,906 4 0	The maximum fee leviable beyond the value of Rs. 4,10,000 is Rs. 3,000		52,500 0 0
100000	..	12,427 8 0	9,262 8 0	1,00,00 0 0	9,156 4 0			75,000 0 0
				(B)	The maximum ee leviable is Rs. 12,500

Mysore	Orissa	Punjab	Rajasthan	Uttar Pradesh	West Bengal		Remarks
10	11	12	13	14	15		16
Rs.	Rs.	Rs.	Rs.	Rs.	Rs.	Rs.
11 3 0	11 4 0	10 0 0	7 8 0	10 0 0	8 2 0	Andhra	Andhra Act VII of 1956
56 3 0	56 4 0	50 0 0	37 8 0	55 0 0	56 4 0	Assam	Court Fees Act, 1870 as amended by the Assam Acts XIV of 1936.
112 7 0	112 8 0	150 0 0	75 0 0	142 8 0	121 8 0	Bihar	Court Fees Act, 1870 as amended by the Bihar Acts XVII of 1939 and XXV of 1948.
412 7 0	412 8 0	635 0 0	275 0 0	522 8 0	412 8 0	Bombay	Court Fees Act,1870 as amended by the Bombay Act LVII of 1954.
712 7 0	712 8 0	1,122 8 0	475 0 0	897 8 0	750 0 0	Kerala	The Travncore-Cochin Court Fees Act (II of 1125).
1,312 7 0	1,312 8 0	2,096 4 0	875 0 0	1,650 0 0	1,350 0 0	Madhya Pradesh	Court Fees Act, 1870 as amended by Madhys Pradesh Court Fees (Amendment) Act (IX of 1953).
1,762 7 0	1,762 8 0	2,827 8 0	1,175 0 0	2,212 8 0	2,100 0 0	Madras	Madras Court Fees Act (XIV of 1955).
1,625 0 0	1,950 0 0	3,071 4 0	1,300 0 0	2,447 8 0	2,287 8 0	Mysore	Mysore Court Fees Act (III of 1900).
(D).
1,775 0 0	2,137 8 0	3,315 0 0	1,425 0 0	2,682 8 0	2,475 0 0	Orissa	Court Fees Act, 1870 as amended by the Orissa Act (XXVII of 1951).
3,000 0 0	3,637 8 0	5,265 0 0	2,425 0 0	4,562 8 0	4,012 8 0	Punjab	Court Fees Act, 1870 as amended by the Punjab Act XIX of 1957.
7,683 12 0	7,212 8 0	3,425 0 0	6,442 8 0	5,512 8 0		Uttar Pradesh	Court Fees Act, 1870 as amended up to 1952 by the U.P. Court Fees (Amendment) Act XXV of 1952.
9,933 12 0	9,157 8 0	4,425 0 0	8,322 8 0	7,012 8 0
10,000 0 0	12, 075 0 0	5,425 0 0	11, 142 8 0	9,262 8 0		West Bengal	Court Fees Act, 1870 as modified upto March, 1940.
		Maximum Payable is Rs. 7,500		(B)			(A)The Maximum fee leviable is Rs. 3,000
							(B) The Maximum fee leviable is Rs. 10,000
							(C) When the amount or value of the subject-matter exceeds of Rs. 50,00 a fee of Rs. 33/5/4 shall be leviable for every Rs. 5,000 or part thereof in excess of Rs. 50,000. The maximum fee leviable under the provisions of the Act is Rs. 4,000.
							(D) when the amount or value of the subject-matter exceeds Rs. 50,000 for every Rs. 5,000 or part thereof in excess of Rs. 5000.....thirty rupees.

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