Bibhuti Bhusan Chatterjee vs The State Of Bihar

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: supreme-court

Case Number: Not extracted

Decision Date: 6 October, 1959

Coram: K. Subba Rao, P.B. Gajendragadkar

In this appeal, the Supreme Court considered a question of construction of Article 9 in Schedule I of the Court Fees Act, 1870, referred to as the Act. The dispute arose from a proceeding instituted against the appellant, Bibhuti Bhusan Chatterjee, under section 107 of the Code of Criminal Procedure before the First Class Magistrate at Bhagalpur. The magistrate ordered the appellant to execute a bond of five thousand rupees, with two sureties each providing an equal amount, to keep the peace for one year. The appellant challenged this order by filing an appeal before the Additional Session Judge at Bhagalpur, who affirmed the magistrate’s decision and dismissed the appeal. Subsequently, the appellant filed Criminal Revision Application No 924 of 1957 before the High Court at Patna, attaching certified copies of the lower courts’ orders. The certified copies were submitted without payment of any court fee, prompting the High Court to direct the appellant to pay fees of rupees 52.75 and 50.75 on the respective orders. The appellant questioned the validity of this demand, and the revision application was referred to the High Court for determination of whether the two certified copies were chargeable with court fees as indicated by the stamp reporter. The High Court held that the stamp reporter’s report conformed to the practice followed by that Court and that such practice was fully justified by the provisions of Article 9. Consequently, the High Court rejected the appellant’s contention that no stamp need be affixed to the two orders and ordered him to affix the necessary stamps within two weeks from the date of the order. The appellant then obtained a certificate under Article 134(1)(c) of the Constitution, confirming that his case was fit for appeal to the Supreme Court. With that certificate, the appellant approached this Court, and counsel for him argued that the view of the Patna High Court was inconsistent with the true construction of Article 9. The Court noted that the present appeal was being treated as a test case to examine the validity of the practice prevailing in the Patna High Court.

In considering the question of whether an accused person must pay court fees for certified copies of criminal orders and judgments, the Court first examined the legislative policy reflected in the Code of Criminal Procedure. The Code contains explicit provisions that require the State to provide the accused with necessary documents at no cost. Section 173(4) of the Code obliges the officer in charge of a police station, before any inquiry or trial begins, to furnish the accused with a free copy of the report sent under subsection (1), the First Information Report recorded under section 154, and any other documents or relevant extracts that the prosecution intends to rely upon. Section 207A, subsection (3) further mandates that when the accused appears before a magistrate, the magistrate must be satisfied that the requirements of section 173(4) have been fulfilled. Under section 210, subsection (2), once a charge is framed, it must be read to the accused, explained, and, if the accused so requests, a copy must be supplied free of charge. Section 251A, subsection (1) provides that if the conditions of section 173(4) have not been met, the magistrate shall order that the documents in question be furnished to the accused without charge. In a similar vein, section 317(1) states that, on the accused’s application, a copy of the judgment shall be given free of cost in any case other than a summons case. The proviso to section 548 authorises a court, when convinced that a special reason exists, to supply the accused with a copy of the judge’s charge to the jury, or of any order, deposition, or other part of the record, also free of charge. The appellant argued that this legislative policy of providing relevant documents to the accused without charge is inconsistent with requiring payment of court fees on certified copies of criminal orders and judgments under Article 9 of the Constitution.

Next, the appellant urged that the provisions of the Court Fees Act should be interpreted strictly in favor of the litigant, insisting that no document should be deemed chargeable unless it is clearly within the mischief contemplated by the relevant provisions of the Act. In other words, the appellant sought a liberal construction of Article 9 to support his contention. The Court, however, was not persuaded by either of these arguments. It held that regardless of the policy underlying the relevant sections of the Code of Criminal Procedure, such policy considerations do not aid in construing the provisions of the Court Fees Act. Section 4 of the Court Fees Act expressly provides that no document listed in the First or Second Schedule to the Act may be filed, exhibited, recorded, received, or furnished in any court unless the fee prescribed for that document under the Act has been paid. Consequently, every document falling within the ambit of section 4 must bear the fee stipulated by the relevant provision, and the determination of whether a particular document is subject to section 4 and therefore requires payment of court fees must be made solely by reference to the specific provisions of the Act. The Court further noted that invoking a liberal construction of Article 9 would be futile unless it can be shown that the article is capable of two reasonable interpretations; if the wording of Article 9 is not reasonably capable of supporting the appellant’s alternative construction, the principle of liberal construction cannot be applied.

Section 4 of the Court Fees Act declares that no document listed in the First or Second Schedule may be filed, exhibited, recorded, received, or furnished in any court unless the fee prescribed by the relevant provision of the Act has been paid. Consequently, every document that falls within the scope of section 4 must bear the court fee specified in the appropriate provision. Determination of whether a particular document is subject to section 4, and therefore liable to the prescribed fee, must be made solely by reference to the provisions of the Act itself. In carrying out that construction, any theoretical considerations about the policy underlying the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure offer little assistance. Likewise, invoking a principle of liberal construction of Article 9 would be futile unless it could be shown that the language of that article is capable of two plausible readings. If the words of Article 9 are reasonably capable of the construction advanced by the appellant, the appellant may argue that an alternative construction, which would make the document subject to the charge of court fees, should not be accepted. However, if the language of the article is reasonably capable of only one meaning, the doctrine of liberal construction becomes inapplicable. Whether the effect of Article 9 is equitable, fair, or just is irrelevant where the meaning of the article is plain and clear. As Lord Blackburn observed in Coltness Iron Company v. Black [(1880‑81) 6 A.C. 315, 330], when the intention of a taxing provision is sufficiently shown, it is futile to speculate on what would be the fairest and most equitable mode of levying the tax. Accordingly, it is necessary to turn to Article 9 and determine its meaning on a fair and reasonable construction.

Article 6 of Schedule I deals with the payment of court fees for a copy or translation of a judgment or order that does not have the force of a decree, while Article 7 addresses the copy of a decree. The orders that are the subject of the present appeal do not fall under either Article 6 or Article 7. Article 9, however, provides the following fee structure: a copy of any revenue or judicial proceeding or order not otherwise provided for by this Act is chargeable at a rate of eight annas for every three hundred and sixty words; and a copy of any account, statement, report or the like taken out of any civil, criminal or revenue court or office, or from the office of any chief officer charged with the executive administration of a division, is chargeable at a rate of one hundred and sixty words. It is clear from this wording that a copy of a statement, report, or similar document taken out of a criminal court is expressly covered by the latter part of Article 9. Therefore, it cannot be accepted that proceedings in criminal courts lie wholly outside the purview of the relevant articles of Schedule I. If a copy of a statement made in a criminal court is filed, it must bear the court fees prescribed by Article 9, a position that is not disputed. This aligns with the definition of a judicial proceeding in section 4, sub‑section (m) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which includes any proceeding in which evidence may be legally taken on oath, confirming that an order passed in a criminal proceeding is indeed an order passed in a judicial proceeding.

In this case the Court observed that it was impossible to accept the argument that proceedings in criminal courts were entirely outside the scope of the relevant articles of Schedule I. The Court noted that when a copy of a statement made in a criminal court was filed, it had to bear the court fee prescribed by Article 9, and that this requirement was not contested. The Court also stated that it could not be disputed that a proceeding in a criminal court constituted a judicial proceeding, because Section 4, subsection (m), of the Code of Criminal Procedure defined a judicial proceeding to include any proceeding in which evidence might be legally taken on oath. Consequently the Court held that there was no doubt that an order passed in a criminal proceeding was an order passed in a judicial proceeding, and it was common ground that orders such as those before the Court were not otherwise provided for by the Act. The Court pointed out that it was not contended that the judgments delivered by the lower courts in proceedings taken under section 107 of the Code were not orders, nor that they did not form part of the judicial proceeding. Therefore, if a copy of an order or judgment delivered in a criminal proceeding was intended to be filed before the High Court, it clearly attracted the provisions of Article 9. The Court described the language of Article 9 as clear and unambiguous, and on a fair and reasonable construction it led only to the conclusion that copies of criminal judgments or orders must bear the court‑fee stamp prescribed by Article 9. The Court noted that this view had been consistently adopted by the High Court in accordance with longstanding practice, and it was satisfied that the High Court’s view and practice were wholly justified by the provisions of Article 9. The Court referred to the decision of the Travancore‑Cochin High Court in James Paul Alexander v. James Arthur Edwards [I.L.R. 1953 T.C. 69], where the same construction had been applied to the corresponding Article 10 of the Court Fees Act. The Court added that there was some merit in the appellant’s contention that the court fee prescribed by Article 9 could sometimes cause hardship for accused persons, but declared that such policy matters were beyond its consideration. The Court suggested that the Legislature might consider enacting a suitable provision dealing with copies of criminal orders and judgments, as had been done in Madras, where the Madras Legislature inserted Article 6‑A in Schedule I of the Act by Act V of 1922, prescribing a uniform court fee of eight annas for the copy or translation of a judgment or order of a criminal court. In the result the appeal was dismissed.