Motor Accident Compensation| Claimant Can Restrict His Relief To A Particular Value For Purpose Of Court Fees: Bombay High Court

The Revisional Petitioners challenged the adjudication by the Claims Tribunal and they approached the High Court challenging the award.

The Single Bench of Justice Shailesh P. Brahme stated, “I am of the considered view that purposive or literal interpretation of sub-section (2) leaves no iota of doubt to conclude that it is permissible for the Appellant to restrict his relief to a particular value and to pay Court fees accordingly. I therefore do not concur with the observations of learned Single Judge in paragraph no. 5 of Vivek Badgire Vs. Saheblal Moinuddin. There is no provision either in the Motor Vehicle Act or in the Maharashtra Court Fees Act to indicate that it is not permissible to restrict the claim for the purpose of Court fees.”

Advocate Manoj D. Shinde represented the Applicant while Advocate C. K. Shinde represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

The Appellant is the original Claimant who had met with an accident and sustained injuries affecting his earning capacity. He had claimed Rs 40,00,000 as compensation before the Tribunal and paid Court fees, which was the maximum before the Tribunal. His claim was partially allowed, awarding compensation of Rs 5,50,000 with interest. Being aggrieved by the award and for enhancement of compensation, an appeal was preferred valuing the claim at Rs. 1,00,000 for the purpose of Court fees. An amount of Rs 3205 was paid towards Court fees. The office objected that the Appellant was liable to pay Court fees for the difference in amount. The claim restricted to Rs. 1,00,000 was not accepted by the office, and he was called upon to pay Rs 24,410 towards the deficit Court fees.

In another Civil Revision Application, the Appellant was neither the owner nor the insurer. The vehicle involved in the accident was purchased by him, but it was not registered with the competent authority. The Tribunal saddled the liability by the impugned award treating him to be the owner of the vehicle. Hence, he preferred appeals. In the memorandum of the appeal, it was stated that he paid half of the ad valorem fees as he was neither insurer nor owner. His claim for Court fees was objected to by the office, and the Taxing Officer upheld the objection and called upon the Appellant to pay full ad valorem fees.

Reasoning

The Bench, at the outset, explained that computation and determination of Court fees on the memorandum of appeal against the award of the Claims Tribunal is regulated by sub-section (2) of Section 7 of the Maharashtra Court Fees Act. The Bench mentioned that there are two categories of Appellants stipulated in Clause Nos. (i) and (ii) of sub-section (2) of Section 7 of the Act. Depending upon the category, the Court fees is payable either as full ad valorem and one half of ad valorem. Injured persons or dependents of deceased who are aggrieved by inadequate or no compensation are covered by Sub-section (2)(ii) because they are other persons than insurer or owner. As per Sub-section 2(ii) and the proviso, a concession is given to those persons/Appellants. They are permitted to pay one half of the ad valorem fees on the amount on which the relief is valued in the memorandum of the appeal, it noted.

Referring to the difference between sub sections 1 and 2, the Bench said, “Once this difference between sub-section (1) and sub-section (2) is understood, there is no difficulty to comprehend that Appellants who are preferring appeal in Motor Vehicle Act have the choice to restrict their relief to a particular claim quoted in the memorandum of the appeal. In the teeth of express provision, it is not possible to accept any other interpretation.”

“Clause Nos. (i) and (ii) of sub-section (2) of Section 7 give choice to the Appellant to restrict relief to particular amount. Therefore the interpretation of learned Taxing Officer to call upon the Appellant to pay deficit Court fees according to difference between the amount awarded and the amount claimed cannot be countenanced. This approach is against the legislative intent and the express provision of the Statute”, it further added.

The Bench further observed that the purposive or literal interpretation of sub-section (2) is indicative that it is permissible for the Appellant to restrict his relief to a particular value and to pay Court fees accordingly.

Thus, allowing the petitions and quashing the impugned orders, the Bench held that there was no impediment in treating the Appellant to be any other person and permitting him to pay one-half of the ad valorem fees.

Cause Title: Shivshankar s/o Khandu Udtewar v. Managing Director, D.C.C. Bank (Neutral Citation: 2025:BHC-AUG:21279)

Appearance

Applicant: Advocates Manoj D. Shinde, P. C. Mayure, Shrikant B. Madde

Respondent: Advocate C. K. Shinde

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