CHENNAI: The State government has notified the amended TN Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act, which thoroughly revised the existing court fees and stamp duty structure.
Originally, while passing interim orders on a PIL, the first bench of the Madras High Court comprising Chief Justice S K Kaul and Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana had formed the committee under the chairmanship of Justice K Sampath, a retired judge of the High Court, to suggest the rationalisation.
Justice Sampath, who died on December 7 last year, had studied the structure, had thorough discussions with the stake-holders, and had addressed the anomalies in the act.
The panel submitted its recommendations to the High Court in September 2016 for amending the act. And the High Court in turn directed the government to pass necessary orders on the recommendations of the Sampath panel. Based on the panel’s suggestions, the Government made changes in the Act, brought out the amended Act, passed the Bill in the Assembly on January 30 last and notified it the same day.
Among other things, the committee recommended a uniform reduction in the court fees between 2 per cent and 3 per cent for civil suits. It noted that the existing fee of 7.5 per cent of the value of the subject matter of the suit made a litigant spend more than 30 per cent of the value of the property. On the fee payable on writ petitions, it wanted the existing `200 increased to `1,000. It had also recommended an increase in the fee for criminal complaints under Sec.138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act to 5 per cent ad valorem, subject to a maximum of `10,000, taking into account the time taken by these complaints.
The Sampath committee said its approach was to ensure revenue neutrality. Nevertheless, it was necessary to examine the revenue impact of its recommendations, the Sampath panel said, adding that its recommendations for reducing the ad valorem court fees was expected to reduce court fees collected on plaints and appeals. The panel also said that the decrease in the rate of court fee was expected to be offset by an increase in fixed court fees payable for writ petitions, writ appeals, or original side appeals, civil miscellaneous appeals, and civil revision petitions.