Delhi HC strikes Down Hike in Court Fees - There can be peace only if there is justice
IN a mammoth 531-page judgment, the Delhi High Court recently struck down the Court Fees (Delhi Amendment) Act, 2012 through which the Delhi government had sought to increase court fees payable in Delhi.
The Judgement started with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi - There can be peace only if there is justice.
The early legislative measures in India on court fees were the Madras Regulation III of 1782, the Bengal Regulation Act XXXVIII of 1795 and the Bombay Regulation VIII of 1802. Subsequently all provincial regulations were amalgamated into a single legislation, the Court Fees Act XXVI of 1860. This Act was also followed by subsequent legislation covering all of British India, including Act XXVI of 1867. All court fees statutes were eventually repealed by the ‘Court Fees Act, 1870 (Act VII of 1870)'. The 1870 Act has been amended from time to time since then, but has not been repealed.
The Delhi High Court observed,
It is well established that administration of justice is a ‘service', which the State is constitutionally mandated to ensure to its citizens. It is a fundamental duty of the state. The levy of exorbitant court fees imposes financial burden on litigants and operates as a barrier for them approaching the judicial system for redressal of their grievances. This is an established impediment to the exercise of the fundamental rights of access to justice. It adversely impacts the constitutional obligation for providing and ensuring a system for securing a just social order and promoting justice. Enhancement of court fee, payment whereof is a pre-condition for approaching the courts, without any evaluation of the realities, ignoring the principles laid down by the Supreme Court; overlooking the studies and reports of legal, social and economic experts is indubitably an anathema to social order and justice. The inevitable conclusion is that therefore, it is violative of the directive principles enshrined in Articles 38 and 39A of the Constitution of India.
It is trite that administration of justice is a sovereign function and the responsibility for providing an adequate system of justice rests squarely on the State. It has been held that it is acceptable for the State to recover some amount as court fee. However, the court fee regime is necessarily to be based on some empirical data and consideration of essential inputs and an appropriate expert evaluation. A mere differential between the amount recovered through court fee and the total expenditure incurred on the judiciary is by itself insufficient to permit the State to impose a particular court fee regime or enhance the existing regime to such levels so as to make good the differential or to make a profit before the system of levying ‘court fee‘ came into vogue and it continued after the levy also .
The High Court quoted Lord Macaulay,
It is undoubtedly a great evil that frivolous and vexatious actions should be instituted. But it is an evil for which the Government has only itself and its agents to blame, and for which it has the power of providing a most sufficient remedy.
Why did dishonest plaintiffs apply to the courts before the institution fee was imposed? Evidently because they thought that they had a chance of success. Does the institution of fee diminish that chance? Not in the smallest degree. It neither makes pleadings clearer, nor the law plain….
Well, that explains it all.