The Court-fees Act, 1870

What it does

The Act provides for the fees payable to the court on the documents filed in it. Its general rule is that no document of a kind chargeable under the Act is to be filed or recorded in a court until the fee is paid. The fee is therefore a condition of getting a document on to the record, and not a matter the court can leave to be settled at the end.

The charges are set out in two Schedules. The first lays down ad valorem fees, which rise with the value of the claim, on plaints, written statements that set up a set-off or counterclaim, appeals and similar documents. The second lays down fixed fees on other documents, such as petitions and applications of particular kinds.

The Act also deals with how the value of a claim is to be stated for the purpose of the fee in particular kinds of suits, with the procedure when a fee is found to be short, and with the refund of fees in certain circumstances.

Who it binds

A person who files a chargeable document in a court to which the Act applies, and the court officers who check the fee. The Act is a central law, but court fees are a matter on which the States have legislated for their own courts, so it does not govern every court in India. Karnataka, for example, has its own Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1958, and other States have laws of their own. Which law applies depends on the court in which the document is filed, and the central Act is the starting point only where the court is one it covers.

What has changed, and when

The Act has been amended many times and by many legislatures. The States amended it for their own territories, and several replaced it altogether, so the schedule of fees differs from one court to another. On the central Act, the site's note on proceedings against a deepfake of a company's chief executive records that the ad valorem fee on a plaint is capped at three thousand rupees and that an injunction suit is valued at the amount stated in the plaint. Whether a State amendment raises that ceiling in the court where the suit is filed is a separate question that has to be answered from the State's own law.

What turns on it in practice

The fee is a cost that has to be planned before a suit is filed, and the valuation of the suit decides it. A plaint that undervalues the claim to save fee is open to challenge, and a defect in the fee can lead to rejection of the plaint if it is not made good in the time the court allows. A plaint that overvalues the claim pays more than it needs to. The choice of valuation is made on the nature of the relief sought, and the relief in a suit for an injunction is valued differently from one for money.

The second point is the part that the fee plays in urgent relief. A company that needs an injunction against a false or harmful publication has to be ready to pay the fee and file within the time the situation demands, and the valuation in the plaint has to be settled early. The site's note on deepfakes names this Act for that reason: the fee is a step in the route to a court order, and a company that has not worked out the fee will lose time.

The third is the difference between courts. The same dispute can attract a different fee depending on where it is filed, and that difference is a factor, alongside the jurisdiction of the court, in deciding where to sue.