CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 2528 of 1969. Appeal by special leave from the order dated March 6, 1969 of the Bombay High Court in Civil Revision Application No. 187 of 1967. S. V. Gupte, P. H. Parekh and R. B. Datar, for the appellant. G. L. Sanghi, B. D. Sharma for, S. P. Nayar, for the respondents. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by Hegde, J. This appeal by special leave, appears to have been brought as a test case. It arises from one of the 116 crossobjections filed in an appeal brought by the Special Deputy Collector, Ahmednagar to the High Court of Maharashtra, under S. 11 of the Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 195Z (Act 30 of 1952) (to be hereinafter referred to as the Act) against an award made by the arbitrator under S. 8(1) of that Act. The controversy in this appeal is as to the relevant provision of the Bombay Court Fee Act, 1959 under which the court-fee is payable on the claim made in the memorandum of crossobjection. According to the appellant on the claim in question .a fixed court-fee of Rs. 5 is payable under Art. 13 of Sch. 11 of the Bombay Court-Fee Act, 1959 but according to the State ad valorem court-fee, is payable on that claim in question either under Article 1 or Art. 3 of Sch. I of that Act. The High Court has come to the conclusion that on the claim made by the appellant ad valorem court-free is payable under Art. 3 of Sch. I of the Bombay Court-Fee Act, 1959. The appellant challenges that conclusion. Lands belonging to the appellant and several others situate in Taluka Parmar, District Ahmednagar were requisitioned on March 10, 1944. Thereafter they were acquired on September 22, 1957 under the provisions of the Act. In respect of the said acquisition, the appellant claimed a sum, of Rs. 12,173/49 P. as compensation but the Special Land Acquisition Officer offered him only Rs. 3,033/59 P. In view of this difference, the matter was referred to the arbitrator as provided in s. 8 (1) (b) of the Act. The arbitrator awarded a sum of Rs. 5,980/55 P. As against that award, the Special Deputy Collector went up in appeal to the High Court of Maharashtra. The appellant filed a cross -objection claiming an additional compensation of Rs. 3,323/93 P. ’On that claim he paid a fixed court-fee of Rs. 5. The Taxing Officer assessed the court-fee payable at Rs. 250 and demanded the appellant to pay an additional courtfee of Rs. 245. The appellant’s revision to the High Court was summarily dismissed. Thereafter this appeal was brought. It was urged by Mr. S. V. Gupte, learned Counsel for the appellant that the High Court was in error in holding that the court-fee in respect of the claim made by his client is payable under Art. 3 of Sch. I and not under Art. 13 of Sch. 11 of the Bombay Court-Fee Act, 1959. According to him Art. 3 of Sch. T applies only to plaint, application or petition (including memorandum of appeal) to set aside or modify any award made by a civil court. The arbitrator appointed under s. 8 of- the Act is not a civil court; he is only a tribunal. Therefore an appeal against his order comes within Art. 13 of Sch. II. The learned Counsel for the Special Deputy Collector on the other hand contended that the appropriate Art. under which the court-fee is payable is either Art. 3 or Art. I of Sch. T. In support of his contention he placed great deal of reliance on S. 7(1) of the Bombay CourtFee Act, 1959.
Section 8(1) of the Act reads
"Where any property is requisitioned or
acquired under this Act, there shall be paid
compensation the
amount of which shall be determined in the
manner and in accordance with the principles
hereinafter set out, that is to say,-
(a) where the amount of compensation can be
fixed by agreement, it shall be paid in
accordance with such agreement;
(b) where no such agreement can be reached,
the Central Government shall appoint as
arbitrator a person who is,or has been, or is
qualified for appointment.as a Judge of a High
Court;
(c) the Central Government may, in any parti-
cular case, nominate a person having expert
knowledge as to the nature of the property
requisitioned or acquired to assist the
arbitrator and where such nomination is made,
the person to be compensated may also nominate
as assessor for the same purpose;
(d) at the commencement of the proceedings
before. the arbitrator, the Central Government
and the person to be compensated shall state
what in their respective opinion is a fair
amount of compensation;
(e) the arbitrator shall, after hearing the
dispute, make an award determining the amount
of compensation which appears to him to be
just and specifying the person or persons to
whom such compensation shall be paid; and in
making the award, he shall have regard to the
circumstances of each case and the provisions
of subsections (2) ’and (3), so far as they
are applicable;
(f) where there is any dispute as to the
person or persons who are entitled to the
compensation, the arbitrator shall decide such
dispute and if the arbitrator finds that more
persons than one are entitled to compensation,
he shall apportion the amount thereof amongst
such persons;
(g) nothing in the Arbitration Act, 1940
shall. apply of arbitration under this
section." Section 9 says
"The amount of compensation payable under an
award shall, subject to any rules made under
this Act, be paid by the competent authority
to the person or ,,persons entitled thereto in
such manner and within such time as may be
specified in the award". Section 1 1 provides for an appeal to the High Court against the award made by the arbitrator. In the Act there is no provision similar to sub-s. (2) of s. 26 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 whereunder every award made by the Lands Acquisition Officer is to be deemed to be a decree of court. Therefore the question whether the award made under s. 8 of the Act is executable or not is a matter that requires further consideration. For the present, we shall proceed on the basis that it is not executable. But S. 9 of the Act requires the competent authority to pay the compensation awarded to the person or persons entitled thereto. Therefore we are unable to accept the contention of the learned Counsel for the appellant that the award made by the arbitrator is something which has no effect and therefore it cannot be considered as an order. It is true that it is not an ’order’ as defined in the Civil Procedure Code, the same having not been made by .a civil court. But the expression ’order is not defined in the Act. The award of the arbitrator is undoubtedly a formal expression of a decision made by a competent authority. Further it is a decision binding on the parties to the proceedings in which it is made. Therefore the question whether the order in question is executable or not appears to us to be irrelevant for the purpose of determining the point in issue. Section 5(1) of the Bombay Court-Fee Act, 1959, provides that no document of any of the kinds specified as chargeable in the first or second schedule to this Act annexed shall be filed, exhibited or recorded in any Court of Justice or shall be received or furnished by any public officer, unless in respect of such document there has been paid a fee of an amount not less than that indicated by either of the said schedules as the proper fee for .such document. Section 7(1) of that Act provides :
"7 (1) The amount of fee payable under this
Act on a memorandum of appeal against an order
relating to compensation under any Act for the
time being in force for the acquisition of
land for public purposes shall be computed
according to the difference between the amount
awarded and the amount claimed by the
appellant." This provision is similar to s. 8 of the Court-Fee Act, 1870. It clearly applies to an appeal filed under s. 11 of the Act. It is true that provision is not a charging section. It only provides for the computation of the courtfee payable. But that provision makes it clear that it relates to the computation of a court-fee payable on ad valorem basis. It can have no connection with any Art’ providing for the payment of fixed court-fee. Therefore the computation provided under that provision can only be of a court-fee payable under one or the other article in Sch. 1. Dealing with the scope of s. 8 of the Court-fee Act, 1870 Rankin C.J. in Anandalal Chakrabarti(1) observed :
"Section 8, while not itself imposing any fee
upon any one, provides a rule for computation
of the fee payable under the Act in a certain
class of cases. What it says is that, in the
class of cases, which it deals with, the
amount of fee payable under the Act on a
memorandum of appeal, it is to be computed
according to the difference between the two
sums. Now, that section standing in the text
of the Act proceeds clearly upon the
assumption that otherwise in the ’ Act there
is a charge which is an ad valorem charge and
is not a fixed charge,;
........ The provisions of s. 8, involving as
they do that fee in the class of cases dealt
with is an ad valorem fee, are themselves
sufficient to exclude any question of Art. 11
of Schedule 11 being made applicable, to, such
cases. It is not necessary to consider
whether the Tribunal’s award, which is an
order and not a decree, is an order having the
force of a decree. Whatever the effect of
that phrase, may be, section 8 shows one per-
fectly clear that an appeal regarding
compensation in a Land Acquisition case is not
under Article 11 of Schedule 11, because it is
not a fixed fee at all.........." We see no force in the contention that before s. 7(1) of the Bombay Court-Fee Act, 1959 can be attracted to an appeal, the order under appeal must have the force of a decree. That section does not say so. It would not, therefore, be proper on our part to add the words "having the force of a decree" after the word ’order’ in s. 7(1). In fact that section is so plain as not to require any interpretation. In that view, it is not necessary for us to consider any of the Articles in Sch. II of the Bombay Courtfee Act, 1959. All that we have to see is under which Art. of Sch. I, the court-fee is payable. For the appellant it matters little whether he is asked to pay court-fee either under Art. 1 or Art. 3 of Sch. I,the court-fee payable under both the Arts. being the same. We are in agreement with the High Court that Art. 3 of Sch. I is the relevant Art. That Art. provides for the payment of ad valorem court-fee at the rates prescribed in Art. 1 of Sch. I on appeal petitions. (1) [1931] I.L.R.59 Cal. 528. The learned Counsel for the appellant urged that Art. 3 of Sch. I of the Bombay Court-fee Act, 1959 is inapplicable because that Art. refers to "plaint, application or petition (including memorandum of appeal), to set aside or modify any award otherwise than under the Arbitration Act, 1940". Before Art. 3 of Sch. I can be attracted, there must be (1) a plaint, application or petition (including a memorandum of appeal); (2) in that plant, application or petition (including memorandum of appeal), there must be a prayer to set aside or modify any award and (3) the award in question must not be one under the Arbitration Act, 1940. There is no dispute that the proceedings with which we are concerned in this case fulfil two out of the three requirements enumerated above. The award concerned in the proceedings is not one made under the Arbitration Act, ;1940 and through his cross objection proceedings the appellant seeks to get the award modified. The only point in controversy is whether the cross-objection filed.by the appellant can be considered as "application or petition" within the meaning of Art. 3 of Sch. 1. The words in the bracket "including memorandum of appeal" in our opinion refer to the word ’petition’ immediately preceding those words. In other words the word ’petition includes the memorandum of appeal as well. The question is whether a cross-objection filed by a respondent in an appeal can be considered as a memorandum of appeal. We have no doubt that it is,a memorandum of appeal in substance though not in form. It is a right given to a respondent in an appeal to challenge the order under appeal to the extent he is aggrieved by that order. The memorandum of cross objection is but one form of appeal. It takes the place of a cross-appeal. It is true that while Art. 1 of Sch. I refers to ’cross-objection Art. 3 of that Sch. does not refer to cross-objection as such but that in our opinion makes no difference. It is only an inartistic drafting. For the reasons mentioned above , we think that the decision of the High Court in The Chatusshakhiya Brahmavrinda Gavaran Trust v. Union of India(1) is correct. In this view, it is not necessary for us to consider the correctness of the decision of the Punjab High Court in Shri- Kanwar Jagat Bahadur Singh v. The Punjab State(2). In the result this appeal fails and the same is dismissed. No costs. G.C.
Appeal dismissed. (1) 70 B. L. R. 407. (2) [1657] I.L.R. Punjab p. 142.