UP Tenancy Act | Court Fee On Appeal Must Be Valued On Subject Matter In Dispute, Not Fee Paid Before Rent Authority: Allahabad High Court
The Allahabad High Court has held that an appeal preferred to the Rent Tribunal under Section 35 of the U.P. Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act, 2021 must be valued on the subject matter in dispute in appeal, and not on the court fee paid on the application originally instituted before the Rent Authority.
Where a composite decree of eviction, arrears of rent and mesne profits is assailed in its entirety, the Court held, mesne profits which have accrued or can be worked out arithmetically by the date the appeal is presented form part of the decretal burden the appellant seeks to shed, and must be reckoned in the court fee.
Dr. Justice Yogendra Kumar Srivastava held,
“This Court, accordingly, holds that where an appellant challenges a composite decree passed by the Rent Authority directing eviction together with recovery of arrears of rent and payment of mesne profits, the memorandum of appeal under Section 35 of the Act, 2021 is liable to be valued with reference to the subject-matter in dispute in appeal.”
The respondent-landlady had moved the Rent Authority under Section 21 of the Act, 2021 seeking eviction of the petitioner from three adjoining shops at Sarai Harha, Ward Chowk, Varanasi, with arrears of rent and mesne profits. The Rent Authority allowed the application, directed the petitioner to vacate within a month and held him liable for arrears of rent together with mesne profits at Rs.2,000 per day.
The petitioner appealed to the Rent Tribunal, depositing Rs.7,00,000 towards the pre-deposit of fifty per cent required by the proviso to Section 35 and affixing court fee of Rs.26,324 which was the same amount the landlady had paid at institution. On her objection that no fee had been paid on the whole decretal amount, the Tribunal held the memorandum of appeal deficient and directed him to make good the deficiency. He invoked the High Court's supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227.
Section 39(1) of the Act, 2021 applies the Court Fees Act, 1870 to applications and appeals before the Rent Authority and the Rent Tribunal. Section 39(2) provides that, for computing court fee, an application for recovery of possession before the Rent Authority and a memorandum of appeal before the Rent Tribunal shall be deemed to be a suit between the landlord and the tenant.
“The statutory fiction is of limited but significant import. It is created solely for identifying the legal regime governing the computation of court fee. It neither obliterates the distinction between original and appellate proceedings nor enacts that the court fee payable on a memorandum of appeal must invariably remain identical to that paid on the original application.”
Separating the incidence of court fee from the measure of its computation, the Court held that Section 39(1) settles whether a proceeding attracts court fee at all, while Section 39(2) only supplies the juridical basis on which the computation proceeds. It held that Section 39 is not a self-contained code prescribing a method of valuing appeals divorced from the Court Fees Act, and a construction tying the fee on every appeal irrevocably to the fee paid on the original application would render the settled principles of appellate valuation otiose.
Distinguishing the position of a plaintiff from that of an appellant, the Court observed,
“A plaintiff values the proceedings with reference to the relief claimed at the institution stage. A defendant, however, approaches the appellate court only after the rights and liabilities of the parties have crystallised under the decree. His liability to pay court fee is, therefore, determined by the extent of the decree from which he seeks relief and not by the court fee paid by the plaintiff at the institution stage.”
On mesne profits, the Court drew a line between claims that remain contingent and those that have hardened into a decretal obligation. It held that future mesne profits turn on an uncertain period of continued occupation and cannot ordinarily be valued at institution, but once the rate is fixed, the uncertainty disappears to that extent.
“Once, however, the adjudicating authority determines the liability or renders it capable of precise arithmetical ascertainment, the appellant who seeks to avoid that liability necessarily brings that monetary obligation within the subject-matter of the appeal.”
On the facts, the Court observed that the appeal was not confined to the direction of eviction and did not leave out the monetary liabilities, the petitioner sought to have the decree displaced in its entirety, so the subject matter in dispute was co-extensive with the decretal liability he sought to avoid. Petitioner's argument that he owed no court fee on a component on which the landlady had paid none was rejected, the liability of a plaintiff being no measure of that of a defendant in appeal.
The Court held that the Rent Authority's direction deferring the landlady's fee to the execution stage was procedural and could not override the principles of appellate valuation. It held that Section 2(4) of the Court Fees Act merely extends that enactment to appeals without freezing the valuation adopted at institution.
Finding no jurisdictional error and noting that the Tribunal had not rejected the appeal but had allowed the petitioner an opportunity to cure the defect, the Court dismissed the petition.
Case Title: Arif Khan vs. Smt Roshan Jahan 2026 LiveLaw (AB) 569
Case Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (AB) 569