1. The matter raised in this appeal relates to the assessment of Court-fees on the plaint. The suit, as we understand it, is a suit for removal of the defendant from the management of certain trust funds on proof of his misconduct. The Subordinate Judge has held that the Court-fees payable should be assessed on the value of the trust property--that being, in his opinion, the subject-matter of the suit.
2. It appears to us that the subject-matter in this suit is not the corpus of the trust property, but the right to retain the control over it. Under such circumstances, the suit would ordinarily fall within Schedule II, Article 17, Clause 6 of the Court-fees' Act. But in the present matter we have the fact that the plaintiff has valued the subject-matter of suit for the purposes of jurisdiction, as he states, at Rs. 7,000. We regard this value as not being merely for the purposes of jurisdiction, but also as affording a basis for the assessment of Court-fees. We accept the principle laid down in the case of Delroos Banoo Begum v. Ashgur Ali Khan 15 B.L.R. 157.
3. But the circumstances of that case are very different from those of the case now before us, so far as we can gather the facts from the papers printed in the paper-book. In the case of Delroos Banoo Begum v. Ashgur All Khan 15 B.L.R. 157 it would seem that the mutwali was in receipt of certain emoluments derived from a specific share of the income of the waqf property; whereas it is not stated in the case before us that the manager is in receipt of any such emolument. Taking, however, the sum of Rs. 7,000, stated in the plaint, we think that the Court-fees should be assessed at least on that amount. The case will be returned to the Court of the Subordinate Judge who will proceed with the trial, provided that the plaintiff deposits the proper amount of Court-fees within fourteen days from this date.
O'Kinealy, J.
4. I concur in the decision arrived at by my learned brother, for I think the case falls within the principle laid down in the case of Delroos Banoo Begum v. Ashgur Ali Khan 15 B.L.R. 157. At page 187 of the report in delivering the judgment of the Court, Glover, J., said:
"The plaintiffs ask for distinct and important consequential relief; they ask not only that the defendant may be declared to have wasted the endowment and thereby to have betrayed her trust, but also that she may be turned out of her mutwaliship, and they, the plaintiffs, be appointed in her room. The plaintiffs say that what they claim does not admit of being properly estimated by a money-value; but this is not so. Under the tanliatnama the mutwalis were to receive six twenty-eighths of the produce of the estate, a very considerable sum, and the plaintiffs' claim to this share as an appurtenance to the office of mutwali was easily to be estimated in money. I am of opinion that the plaint ought to have been engrossed on a stamp of proper value."
By this I understand the Court was of opinion that the suit should be valued according to the interest of the plaintiff in the subject-matter of the suit, and in this case the plaintiff has valued it at Rs. 7,000.