Reduce court fee for litigants, recommmends judge-led panel

The report, prepared by Justice K Sampath along with Barrister Ramakrishnan Viraraghavan and former advocate general R Krishnamoorthy, suggested that “The existing court fee at 7.5% ad valorem will translate to 22.5% of the value of the subject matter in dispute across the suit, first appeal and second appeal. This is in addition to legal practitioners’ fee. If the subject matter of the suit is immovable property, the litigant will be spending more than 30% of the value of the property. The Committee feels this is unjust and hence recommends a uniform reduction in the court fee on plaints from the current 7.5% to any percentage between 2% and 3%.”

Also, recommending levy of court fee in a single slab, the report pointed out that while several other States have a maximum limit on the court fee, the committee does not recommend a maximum limit as this is likely to lead to misuse by deliberate overvaluation of claims on a speculative basis. However, the report on pointing out that the overall impact of the Committee’s recommendations is expected to be revenue neutral, said the decrease in the rate of court fee is expected to be offset by increase in the fixed court fee payable for writ petitions, writ appeals, or original side appeals, civil miscellaneous appeals and civil revision petitions.

The Committee on recommending a periodic review of the Court Fees Act at least once in five years, also mooted an increase in the fixed court fee for vakalats (advocacy), memoranda of appearance caveat petitions, interlocutory applications and petitions for rationalisation in computation of market value for immovable properties.

While noting that the current mode of payment of court fee through stamp papers and court fee labels is obsolete, time-consuming and irksome, the committee has sought the State to switch over to a mechanism similar to e-stamping for non-judicial stamps, for payment of court fee. 

It has sought the NIC information system currently in place for delivering information on the status of litigation, to furnish information on the court fee paid for the litigation.

First bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R Mahadevan, sought the Government Pleader to submit a time-frame required to implement the report and posted it for directions to October 7.

Does the High Court have powers to direct the police to register an FIR or quash it as the case may be under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC)? This query witnessed wide ranging arguments at the Madras High Court more as a self-test despite several courts including the Supreme Court coming up with several rulings in this regard. 

Justice PN Prakash faced with pleas under section 482 of CrPC seeking directions to register FIRs as well as quash it, had requested bar members to debate the issue in his court. He wanted more clarity on the issue, especially on the aspect as to how the court on one hand could order registration of FIR and on the other seek to quash it. The judge also sought to know as to whether the High Court can direct the police to register an FIR.