Schedule I and II — Article-Wise Court Fees

Every plaint, memorandum of appeal, application and petition that enters an Indian civil or revenue court is taxed by one of two engines bolted to the back of the Court Fees Act, 1870. Schedule I charges ad valorem — a graduated percentage rising with the value of the subject-matter — while Schedule II charges a fixed figure indifferent to value. Section 6 makes both schedules compulsory: no chargeable document may be filed unless the proper fee under one or the other is paid. The whole art of the subject lies in deciding which schedule, and within it which article, governs a given relief — because that single classification can move the fee from nineteen rupees and fifty paise to lakhs. This chapter walks article by article through both schedules and the case law that polices the boundary.

The two fee engines: ad valorem versus fixed

The Act levies court fee through two mutually exclusive mechanisms. Schedule I contains the ad valorem fees — a Latin tag meaning “according to value” — where the fee climbs in slabs as the amount or value of the subject-matter in dispute rises. Schedule II contains the fixed fees, a flat rupee figure attached to a class of document regardless of the money at stake. Section 6 is the charging hinge: except in the courts mentioned earlier in the Act, no document of any kind specified as chargeable in the first or second schedule shall be filed, exhibited or recorded in any court of justice, nor received by any public officer, unless the proper fee indicated by either schedule has been paid.

The practical question in litigation is never whether a fee is due but under which schedule. That is governed by Section 7, the computing section, which tells you how to ascertain the value for the ad valorem heads, and by the residual logic that anything not computable in money, or expressly listed in Schedule II, takes a fixed fee. The valuation machinery of Section 7 is covered in detail in our chapter on computation of court fees; this chapter concentrates on the schedules themselves — the tariff to which that machinery feeds its answer. For the architecture of the Act as a whole, see the subject hub.

Schedule I, Article 1 — the workhorse ad valorem slab

Article 1 of Schedule I is the single most important entry in the entire Act. It governs the fee on a “plaint, written statement pleading a set-off or counter-claim, or memorandum of appeal (not otherwise provided for in this Act), or of cross-objection presented to any Civil or Revenue Court” other than those mentioned in Section 3. In other words, it is the default tariff for the ordinary money-and-property suit and its appeal.

The fee is graduated in narrow slabs. In the unamended Central scale, where the value does not exceed five rupees the fee is six annas; for every five rupees in excess up to one hundred rupees, six annas; for every ten rupees in excess up to one thousand rupees, twelve annas; for every hundred rupees in excess up to five thousand rupees, five rupees; and the slabs continue widening — ten rupees per two-hundred-and-fifty up to ten thousand, fifteen rupees per five hundred up to twenty thousand, and so on. State amendments have rewritten these figures and most States now levy a flat percentage (commonly between 5% and 10%) subject to a statutory ceiling. The structural point for the exam is constant: the fee rises with value, and the value is fixed by Section 7. Article 1 is the destination to which Section 7(i) (money suits), 7(v) (suits for possession of land valued on market value) and the consequential-relief limb of 7(iv) all deliver their computed figure.

Three features of Article 1 are worth pinning down. First, it expressly equates a written statement pleading a set-off or counter-claim with a plaint — a defendant who counter-claims is, for fee purposes, a plaintiff and pays the same ad valorem slab on the value of his counter-claim. Second, the words “not otherwise provided for in this Act” make Article 1 residual within Schedule I: it governs only those plaints and appeals that no more specific entry — Article 2 possession suits, the probate head, or any Schedule II article — has already captured. Third, the slab structure is regressive at the margin: the rate of increment widens as value rises, and the Central proviso once capped the maximum fee, a ceiling many States retain. A candidate who can recite that Article 1 covers plaint, set-off, counter-claim, appeal and cross-objection alike, and that it yields to any more specific provision, has the spine of the whole tariff.

Schedule I, Articles 2 to 11 — appeals, copies and the great probate head

The remaining Schedule I articles attach ad valorem fees to documents other than the ordinary plaint. Article 2 charges a plaint in a suit for possession under Section 9 of the Specific Relief Act, 1877 (now Section 6 of the 1963 Act) at one-half the Article 1 scale. Articles 4 and 5 deal with applications for review of judgment — the full plaint/appeal fee if presented on or after the ninetieth day from the decree, one-half if before. Articles 6 to 9 tax copies and translations of judgments, decrees and proceedings, sometimes ad valorem, sometimes at small fixed sums.

The heavyweight is Article 11 — probate of a will or letters of administration with or without the will annexed. Here the fee is a percentage of the value of the estate: in the Central scale, two per centum where the value exceeds one thousand but not ten thousand rupees, two-and-a-half per centum up to fifty thousand, and three per centum above that — with a proviso reducing the probate fee by any fee already paid on a succession certificate over the same estate. The estate is valued on the Schedule III form under Section 19-I. Because probate fee is a tax on the estate’s value, several High Courts have struck down State amendments that pushed the rate to confiscatory levels; the Gauhati High Court, for instance, voided a 7% ad valorem probate levy on estates above five lakhs as an unreasonable restriction. The grant of probate or letters is itself a Schedule I document; mere applications and caveats in the probate proceeding fall under Schedule II.

Schedule II — the fixed-fee table and its residual logic

Schedule II lists documents that bear a flat fee. In the classic Central numbering it runs from Article 1 (applications and petitions, with a long graded list depending on the office addressed) through wakalatnamas, memoranda of appeal not from a decree, the caveat, matrimonial petitions, arbitration applications, and the pivotal Article 17, ending around Article 21. State consolidations have renumbered the table — in the current Central consolidated version, for example, the caveat appears at Serial 9 and the declaratory-suit head at Serial 12 — but the case law, and almost every examiner, still uses the historic numbering in which the great declaratory head is Article 17. We follow the historic numbering below, because that is how Suhrid Singh and the rest of the canon cite it.

The unifying idea of Schedule II is that the document either (a) cannot sensibly be valued in money, or (b) is a procedural step rather than a claim on value. A wakalatnama, a bail-bond, an application for leave to sue as a pauper, a caveat — none of these has a “value in dispute”, so a fixed fee is the only coherent charge. The danger zone, examined below, is Article 17, where a litigant who has in truth made a valuable claim tries to slip it under a fixed-fee head.

A further structural feature deserves notice. Schedule II Article 1 is itself internally graded by the forum and capacity of the office addressed rather than by the value of any claim: an application to a Customs or Excise officer carries one rupee; a petition to a subordinate civil court or small-cause court in a matter under fifty rupees carries two rupees; a petition to a Chief Controlling Revenue Authority carries three rupees; and writ petitions to the High Court carry their own special figures. This shows that even within the “fixed” schedule the legislature taxes by reference to the seriousness and level of the forum, not by reference to money at stake. The aspirant should resist the temptation to treat Schedule II as a single flat rate; it is a structured tariff of fixed sums.

Section 4 and the High Court reference — why some courts are carved out

Section 6 opens with the words “except in the courts hereinbefore mentioned”, and those words point back to Section 4, the charging section for the High Courts. Section 4 provides that in the High Courts in the exercise of their extraordinary original civil jurisdiction, their admiralty or vice-admiralty jurisdiction, their jurisdiction as courts of reference and revision, and (subject to detail) their appellate jurisdiction, no document chargeable in Schedule I or II shall be filed unless the proper fee under the schedule is paid. In substance the same two schedules govern the High Courts, but Section 4 is the operative gateway there, while Section 6 is the gateway for every other civil and revenue court and public office.

The practical upshot for classification is that the schedules are common — a plaint on the original side of a chartered High Court is still taxed under Schedule I Article 1, and a writ petition under Schedule II Article 1(d) — but the charging mechanism differs by forum. Examiners occasionally test whether a candidate knows that Sections 4 and 6 are twin charging provisions feeding the same schedules, rather than imagining a separate tariff for the High Courts. They are not separate; the schedules are the single source of the actual rupee figure.

Article 17 of Schedule II — the declaratory-decree head

Article 17 charges a single fixed fee (ten rupees in the original scale; nineteen rupees fifty paise after later upward revision, and renumbered in State Acts) on a “plaint or memorandum of appeal” in each of six listed suits: (i) to alter or set aside a summary decision or order of a civil court not established by Letters Patent or of a revenue court; (ii) to alter or cancel an entry in a register of the names of proprietors of revenue-paying estates; (iii) to obtain a declaratory decree where no consequential relief is prayed; (iv) to set aside an award; (v) to set aside an adoption; and (vi) every other suit where it is not possible to estimate at a money-value the subject-matter in dispute, and which is not otherwise provided for by the Act.

Sub-clauses (iii) and (vi) generate almost all the litigation. Clause (iii) is the home of the bare declaration: if the plaintiff asks only for a court’s declaration of his status or right and prays for nothing more, he pays the fixed fee. The instant a consequential relief — possession, injunction, cancellation, partition — is tacked on, the suit escapes Article 17 and falls into the ad valorem net of Section 7(iv). Clause (vi) is the residual catch-all for genuinely unvaluable disputes; courts read it narrowly, refusing to let it swallow claims that can be money-valued. The boundary between Article 17(iii) and Section 7(iv)(c) is the single most examined point in the whole subject.

Suhrid Singh v. Randhir Singh — the executant / non-executant rule

The modern leading authority on the Article 17 boundary is Suhrid Singh @ Sardool Singh v. Randhir Singh, (2010) 12 SCC 112. The plaintiff sought declarations that certain properties were coparcenary and that a will and gift deeds were void as against the coparcenary, with joint possession. The trial court demanded ad valorem fee on the deed consideration; the Supreme Court, per R.V. Raveendran J., laid down a three-fold test that every aspirant must memorise.

First, if “A”, the executant of a deed, sues to have it cancelled, he must pay ad valorem court fee on the consideration stated in the deed — he is trying to undo his own act and the relief is consequential. Second, if “B”, a non-executant who is in possession, sues merely for a declaration that the deed is null or void and does not bind him or his share, he pays only the fixed fee under Article 17(iii) of the Second Schedule, because for a stranger the deed is already a nullity and nothing consequential is needed. Third, if “B” is a non-executant not in possession and seeks, beyond the declaration, the consequential relief of possession, he pays ad valorem fee under Section 7(iv)(c). The case is the cleanest articulation of why the identity of the party and the presence of consequential relief jointly decide the schedule. Its possession-driven logic dovetails with our chapter on suits for possession and valuation methods.

Shamsher Singh v. Rajinder Prashad — the proviso bites

Where the declaration is sought by a person who is not in possession and the property is involved, the proviso to Section 7(iv) drags the suit into ad valorem territory even if the plaint is artfully drafted as a pure declaration. In Shamsher Singh v. Rajinder Prashad, (1973) 2 SCC 524 : AIR 1973 SC 2384, minor sons sued for a declaration that a mortgage executed by their father and the resulting decree were void against their joint-family interest, paying only the fixed fee of Rs. 19.50 and valuing the suit at Rs. 16,000 for jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court held the suit was in substance covered by Section 7(iv)(c) and that, because the relief truly aimed at protecting a valuable property interest against execution, ad valorem fee on the value of that interest was payable; the fixed fee under Article 17 would not do. Shamsher Singh is the counterweight to Suhrid Singh: a non-executant cannot always shelter under Article 17(iii); where the practical object is to ward off a sale and the plaintiff must, in substance, seek consequential protection, the value of the protected interest is taxed. Read together the two cases bracket the field — possession and the genuine absence of consequential relief are the twin keys to the fixed fee.

Section 7(iv) and the plaintiff’s right to value

For the suits in Section 7(iv) — declaration with consequential relief, injunction, easement, account and the like — the legislature deliberately fixed no objective standard of valuation. The plaintiff is given the liberty to state the amount at which he values the relief sought, and the court fee follows that stated figure, which then feeds the Schedule I scale. This is the bridge between the fixed and ad valorem worlds: a Section 7(iv) suit is not a fixed-fee suit, but its ad valorem fee runs on a value the plaintiff himself chooses.

The foundational authority is S. Rm. Ar. S. Sp. Sathappa Chettiar v. S. Rm. Ar. Rm. Ramanathan Chettiar, AIR 1958 SC 245, which held that in a Section 7(iv) suit the amount at which the plaintiff values the relief for court-fee purposes also determines the value for jurisdiction — court fee drives jurisdiction, not the other way round. The principle was reinforced in Commercial Aviation & Travel Co. v. Vimal Pannalal, (1988) 3 SCC 423 : AIR 1988 SC 1636, where a partnership-dissolution-and-accounts suit valued at Rs. 25 lakhs for jurisdiction but Rs. 500 for court fee survived a rejection challenge: the Court held that for the unvaluable accounts relief no objective standard exists, so the plaintiff’s notional figure stands unless it is demonstrably arbitrary. The mechanics of money-claim valuation are developed in suits for money: valuation and court fees.

Tara Devi v. Thakur Radha Krishna Maharaj — limits of the liberty

The plaintiff’s freedom under Section 7(iv) is wide but not unlimited. In Tara Devi v. Sri Thakur Radha Krishna Maharaj, (1987) 4 SCC 69 : AIR 1987 SC 2085, the plaintiff sued for a declaration that certain pattas were ineffective, with recovery of possession, valuing the suit on the rent payable. The Supreme Court explained that the court may interfere with the plaintiff’s valuation only where, on the facts and circumstances, the valuation is found to be arbitrary, unreasonable or demonstrably undervalued — otherwise the plaintiff’s own estimate of an unvaluable relief must ordinarily be accepted for both court fee and jurisdiction.

On the facts the rent-based valuation of the leasehold interest was held reasonable and not a deliberate underestimate, so it stood. Tara Devi is the discipline on the Sathappa/Commercial Aviation liberty: the plaintiff chooses, but a grossly under-pitched figure designed to dodge the ad valorem slab or oust a court’s pecuniary jurisdiction can be revised. The trio — Sathappa, Commercial Aviation and Tara Devi — is the standard examination cluster on Section 7(iv) valuation feeding into Schedule I.

Partition suits — when joint possession buys the fixed fee

Partition is the classic illustration of how possession switches the schedule. A coparcener or co-owner in joint possession who sues merely to convert his undivided share into a divided one is asking the court for a re-arrangement, not to recover property from an ouster; his plaint is treated as essentially declaratory and bears a fixed fee. A plaintiff who has been excluded or ousted from possession is, in substance, suing to recover possession of his share and must pay ad valorem fee on the value of that share.

In Neelavathi v. N. Natarajan, (1980) 2 SCC 247 : AIR 1980 SC 691, the Supreme Court applied the settled rule that, as between co-owners, the possession of one is in law the possession of all unless ouster is proved; the plaintiffs, having pleaded joint possession, were therefore entitled to pay the fixed fee for partition rather than the ad valorem fee demanded. Although the case arose under the Tamil Nadu Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1955, the principle maps directly onto the Schedule II / Section 7(iv) divide of the 1870 Act and is developed further in our chapter on suits for partition.

Caveats, wakalatnamas and the procedural fixed fees

A large part of Schedule II taxes documents that are steps in a proceeding rather than assertions of value. The caveat — a notice lodged to ensure no order is passed without hearing the caveator, classically in probate and now under Section 148-A of the Code of Civil Procedure — bears a flat fee (five rupees in the original Schedule II, ten rupees in the consolidated Central scale, varying by State). A wakalatnama or mukhtarnama authorising counsel bears a fixed fee graded only by the level of court. Applications and petitions under Article 1 of Schedule II carry small fixed sums depending on the office addressed, with special higher figures for writ petitions under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution in the High Court.

The drafting lesson is that these fees are insensitive to the stakes: a caveat in a crore-rupee estate costs the same flat fee as one in a small estate, because the document does not itself claim the estate. Aspirants should be ready to classify a given paper — bail-bond, pauper application, copy application, agreement stating a question for the court’s opinion — into the correct Schedule II article and recite its fixed character.

A subtle but examinable point is the interaction between the fixed-fee application and the later substantive proceeding. An application for leave to sue as a pauper bears only the small fixed fee of Schedule II; but if leave is granted and the suit succeeds, the State recovers the ad valorem court fee that would have been payable under Schedule I as a first charge on the subject-matter of the suit. The pauper provisions thus do not waive the Schedule I fee — they defer it. Similarly, an application for review under Schedule I Articles 4 and 5 is taxed by reference to the plaint or appeal fee, not as a flat Schedule II item, precisely because review reopens a valued contest. The classification of a paper therefore turns on whether it is a self-contained procedural step or a gateway back into a valued dispute. For the broader scheme of which papers are chargeable at all, see the introduction to court fees.

Court fee is a question between the litigant and the State

A defendant often wants to escalate the plaintiff’s court fee, hoping either to delay the suit or to force a higher payment. The Supreme Court has firmly shut this door. In Sriratnavaramaraja (Rathnavarmaraja) v. Vimla, AIR 1961 SC 1299, the Court held that the Court Fees Act was enacted to collect revenue for the benefit of the State, not to arm a contesting defendant with a weapon to obstruct the trial. The adequacy of court fee on a plaint is primarily a matter between the plaintiff and the State; a defendant has no vested right to insist on higher court fee and cannot ordinarily invoke the High Court’s revisional jurisdiction merely to dispute the plaintiff’s valuation.

This principle has two consequences for the schedules. First, the choice between Schedule I and Schedule II, and the valuation that drives Schedule I, is policed mainly by the court at the office-objection stage and by the State, not by the opponent. Second, it explains the relative liberty extended to the plaintiff under Section 7(iv): since the fee is a revenue charge, the law tolerates a plaintiff’s reasonable self-valuation and intervenes only against arbitrariness, as Tara Devi confirms. The defendant’s remedy is confined to genuine jurisdictional consequences, not to fee maximisation.

Substance over form — courts read the plaint as a whole

The decisive technique running through every case is that the court fixes the schedule by reading the substance of the relief, not its label. A plaint dressed up as a bare declaration but in truth seeking possession, cancellation of one’s own deed, or protection of a valuable interest against sale will be taxed ad valorem under Schedule I notwithstanding the draftsman’s choice of words. Conversely, a relief that is genuinely declaratory and unvaluable, pleaded by a person in possession, will draw the fixed fee under Article 17 however large the property looming behind it.

Three propositions should be carried into the hall. First, ask who is suing — executant or stranger, in possession or out (Suhrid Singh, Shamsher Singh). Second, ask what is really sought — pure declaration (fixed fee, Art. 17) or declaration-plus-consequential-relief (ad valorem, Section 7(iv) into Schedule I). Third, where Section 7(iv) applies, the plaintiff values, but only within the bounds of reasonableness (Sathappa, Commercial Aviation, Tara Devi), and the contest is with the State, not the defendant (Rathnavarmaraja). Master those three and the article-wise tariff of Schedules I and II resolves itself.