Schedule I and II — Article-Wise Fees

The body of the Rajasthan Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1961 tells you how to value a claim; the actual fee is read off its Schedules. Schedule I charges ad valorem on a graduated slab table, Schedule II charges flat fixed sums, and section 6 bars filing any chargeable document without the proper fee. This article walks article-by-article through both Schedules, fixes the classic traps, and ties the rates to the leading valuation authorities.

The Two-Schedule Architecture

The fee-bearing engine of the Rajasthan Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1961 sits in its Schedules, not its sections. The operative provisions of the Act repeatedly refer the reader outward: the body of the statute tells you how to value a claim, but the actual rupee figure is read off Schedule I or Schedule II. Section 6 lays down the controlling rule that no document chargeable under either Schedule shall be filed, exhibited or recorded in any court unless the proper fee shown against it has been paid. The two Schedules therefore exhaust the field: every plaint, memorandum of appeal, application, petition, copy, probate, certificate, vakalatnama and caveat falls under one entry or the other.

The dividing line is simple in principle. Schedule I is headed "Ad Valorem Fees" and charges fees that rise with the value of the subject matter. Schedule II is headed "Fixed Fees" and prescribes flat, value-independent amounts. A third Schedule (Schedule III) is not a fee table at all; it merely supplies the prescribed Forms of Valuation of an estate for probate and administration. Understanding which Schedule governs a given document is the first analytical step in any court-fee problem, because it dictates whether you must value the relief at all.

Schedule I, Article 1 — The Ad Valorem Slab Table

Article 1 of Schedule I is the workhorse of the entire Act. It governs the fee on a plaint, a written statement pleading a set-off or counter-claim, or a memorandum of appeal. The fee is graduated on the amount or value of the subject matter in dispute, computed under the body of the Act (see computation of court fees). As substituted by the Rajasthan Finance Act, 2007, the slabs run: 2.5 per cent where the value does not exceed Rs. 15,000; Rs. 375 plus 7.5 per cent of the excess over Rs. 15,000 up to Rs. 75,000; Rs. 4,875 plus 7 per cent of the excess over Rs. 75,000 up to Rs. 2,50,000; and so on in descending marginal percentages, the rate falling slab by slab to just one-half per cent on value above Rs. 3,00,00,000.

The crucial structural feature is the marginal, slab-by-slab design: each tier carries a fixed base plus a percentage on the excess over the lower threshold, so the effective rate declines as the claim grows. This is why a Rs. 10 lakh suit does not attract a flat 2.5 per cent. A NOTE to the Schedule directs that where the computed fee contains a fraction of a rupee, the total is rounded up to the next whole rupee. Because every money suit, recovery suit and most appeals are valued through this single article, mastery of the slab arithmetic is indispensable for the examination.

Schedule I — Articles 2 to 7 (Insolvency, Probate, Succession, Review)

Beyond Article 1, Schedule I houses a cluster of value-linked entries. Article 2 charges a petition under section 26 of the Provincial Insolvency Act, 1920, or an application under section 95 CPC, at one-half the Article 1 scale on the amount or compensation claimed, with the appeal under clause (b) charged on the full Article 1 scale. Article 3 covers petitions and appeals under sections 53 and 54 of the Insolvency Act at one-half the Article 1 scale on the market value, capped at a maximum of Rs. 500. Article 4 charges a memorandum of appeal against an order under the Indian Succession Act, 1925, at one-half the Article 1 scale on the value of the subject matter.

Article 5 is heavily tested: an application for review of judgment bears one-half of the fee payable on the plaint or memorandum of appeal comprising the relief sought in the review. Article 6 charges probate of a will or letters of administration at 2 per cent on an estate value above Rs. 1,000 up to Rs. 5,000, and 3 per cent where it exceeds Rs. 5,000. Article 7 applies the same 2 and 3 per cent rates to a succession certificate under the 1925 Act on the value of the debts and securities specified. These probate and certificate entries are genuinely ad valorem and therefore correctly placed in Schedule I rather than Schedule II.

Schedule II — The Logic of Fixed Fees

Schedule II charges a flat amount irrespective of the stakes. Its eighteen articles cover documents where Parliament and the State Legislature considered ad valorem charging either impracticable or inappropriate. Article 1 charges matrimonial petitions, plaints and appeals — under the Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act, 1939, the Indian Divorce Act, 1869, the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936, the Special Marriage Act, 1954, and the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 — at a fixed twenty rupees (ten rupees under the Native Converts' Marriage Dissolution Act, 1866). An Explanation preserves ad valorem charging under Article 1 of Schedule I on any specific claim for damages embedded in such a petition, neatly illustrating how the two Schedules interlock within a single proceeding.

Article 3 charges memoranda of appeal from orders under sections 47 or 144 CPC and appeals from a Single Judge of the High Court, with rates tiered by forum rather than by value. Article 4 covers appeals under section 39 of the Arbitration Act, 1940 (Rs. 15 where jurisdictional value is up to Rs. 5,000, else Rs. 100). The fixed-fee philosophy is that the labour of the court in dealing with these instruments does not vary with the rupee value of the dispute, so a uniform charge is fair and administratively cheap to collect.

Schedule II — Copies, Applications and Petitions

Articles 5 to 11 form the administrative backbone of Schedule II. Articles 5 to 9 charge copies and translations: a copy or translation of a judgment not having the force of a decree, a criminal court judgment, a decree or order having the force of a decree, a stamped document left in place of a withdrawn original, and any other revenue or judicial proceeding — each at modest fixed sums (typically one or two rupees, five rupees from the High Court). Article 10 sweeps in applications to Regional and State Transport Authorities under the Motor Vehicles Act, applications to executive officers, and the residuary applications to the State Government, Board of Revenue and other public offices.

Article 11 is the most comprehensively tested entry. Its many clauses charge: applications for certified copies from a court (clause a); applications for arrest or attachment before judgment or temporary injunction (clause g, one rupee in subordinate courts, five in the High Court); applications under section 47 and Order XXI Rules 58 and 90 CPC (clause h); applications for probate or letters of administration (clause j), with the important proviso that if a caveat is entered and the matter is registered as a contentious suit, one-half the Article 1, Schedule I scale on the market value of the estate becomes payable, less the fixed fee already paid; applications to set aside an arbitration award (clause l); revision petitions under section 115 CPC (clause p); writ petitions under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution (clause r, twenty-five rupees, other than habeas corpus); and the residuary application to the High Court (clause s).

Schedule II — Pauper Suits, Vakalatnama, Bonds and Caveats

The closing articles of Schedule II charge the procedural instruments that accompany litigation. Article 12 charges an application for leave to sue as a pauper at one rupee, and Article 13 an application for leave to appeal as a pauper at one rupee (two in the High Court) — a deliberately nominal charge consistent with the indigence the application asserts. Article 14 charges a bail bond or instrument of obligation given under the Criminal or Civil Procedure Codes at one rupee. Article 15 charges every copy of a power of attorney filed in a suit at one rupee.

Article 16 charges the mukhtarnama or vakalatnama for the conduct of any one case, again tiered by the forum to which it is presented (one rupee to ordinary civil, criminal and revenue courts; two rupees to the High Court or Chief Controlling authority). Article 17 charges an agreement stating a case for the opinion of the court under the CPC, and Article 18 charges a caveat at ten rupees. These small but mandatory fees mean that even an entirely value-neutral filing carries a court-fee consequence, reinforcing the section 6 rule that no chargeable document escapes the Schedules.

Where Declaration, Injunction and Partition Suits Fall

A recurring examination trap is assuming that declaratory and injunction suits are charged under Schedule II merely because they sound non-monetary. They are not. Suits for declaration, for declaration with consequential relief, for injunction, and for partition are valued under the dedicated computation provisions in the body of the Act, and the fee is then read off Article 1 of Schedule I on that computed value. The detailed treatment of these is covered in court fees on declaration and injunction and court fees on partition.

The Supreme Court's reasoning in Suhrid Singh @ Sardool Singh v. Randhir Singh, (2010) 12 SCC 112, captures the underlying logic that the Rajasthan Act shares with the Court Fees Act, 1870: where the executant of a deed sues to cancel it, ad valorem fee on the deed value is payable, but where a non-executant in possession merely seeks a declaration that the deed does not bind him, a fixed fee suffices; if he is out of possession and also seeks consequential possession, ad valorem fee revives. The placement of a suit between Schedule I and Schedule II thus turns on the precise relief framed, not on the label the plaintiff attaches to it.

Plaintiff's Valuation and Its Limits

Because Schedule I charges on value, the question of who fixes that value becomes critical. In suits where the plaintiff is permitted to value his own relief, the leading principle is stated in S.Rm.Ar.S.Sp. Sathappa Chettiar v. S.Rm.Ar.Rm. Ramanathan Chettiar, AIR 1958 SC 245, that the value for jurisdiction follows the value for court fee, and not the reverse — the computation under the fee provisions drives both figures. The plaintiff's valuation is, however, not absolute. In Tara Devi v. Sri Thakur Radha Krishna Maharaj, AIR 1987 SC 2085, the Court held that while the plaintiff's own estimate of the relief is ordinarily accepted, the court may revise a valuation that is patently arbitrary or unreasonable or reflects deliberate underestimation.

Equally important is who may complain about under-valuation. In Sriratnavaramaraja (Rathnavarmaraja) v. Smt. Vimla, AIR 1961 SC 1299, the Supreme Court held that the Court Fees Act exists to secure revenue for the State and not to arm the 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, and a defendant cannot ordinarily drag the suit through revisional proceedings on that ground alone. These authorities together discipline the operation of the ad valorem Schedule.

How the Sections Feed the Schedules

The Schedules do not operate in isolation; specific charging and computation sections route documents into them. Section 6, as noted, is the gateway: it bars filing of any document chargeable under Schedule I or II without payment of the proper fee. The computation chapter then tells the court how to fix the value that Article 1 of Schedule I will charge — for money suits, the fee follows the amount claimed (see court fees on money suits); for suits for specific performance, declaration, injunction and partition, dedicated computation rules apply before the Schedule I rate is read off.

A document that matches a Schedule II entry by description is charged the fixed sum there, full stop, with no valuation exercise. Where a document could arguably fall under both — for instance a probate application that becomes contentious — the Act resolves the overlap expressly, as Article 11(j) of Schedule II does by converting the fixed application fee into a half-scale ad valorem charge under Schedule I once a caveat turns the matter into a suit. This interplay between the body sections and the two Schedules is the conceptual heart of the statute, and the linkage is examined further in the introduction and object of the Act.

Exam Strategy for Schedule Problems

For judiciary and CLAT-PG candidates, a disciplined three-step method answers almost every Schedule question. First, classify the document: is it a plaint, appeal, application, copy, probate, certificate, vakalatnama or caveat? Second, decide the Schedule: if the charge varies with value, it is Schedule I (Articles 1 to 7); if it is a flat instrument-based charge, it is Schedule II (Articles 1 to 18). Third, if Schedule I applies, compute the value under the relevant body section and read the rate off the Article 1 slabs, remembering the marginal base-plus-percentage structure and the round-up NOTE.

Watch the classic traps: declaratory and injunction plaints are not automatically fixed-fee; review applications are charged at half the originating fee under Article 5 of Schedule I, not a flat sum; and a probate application can migrate from Schedule II to Schedule I once contested. Keep the policy cases ready — Rathnavarmaraja for the defendant's inability to obstruct, Tara Devi for the limits on the plaintiff's valuation, and Sathappa Chettiar for the fee-drives-jurisdiction rule — because Schedule questions are frequently dressed as valuation problems. With these in hand, the apparent complexity of the fee tables reduces to a short, mechanical drill.