@JUDGMENTTAG-ORDER
V. R. Krishna Iyer, J.@mdashWhether the violation of rule will spell an invalidatory consequence is the question highlighted in this petition. The application is one purporting to be u/s 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure, praying for the grant of permission to accept the stamp papers produced in payment of court-fee for the appeal which have been purchased from the local licensed stamp vendor instead of from the ex-officio vendor (the treasury). The total court-fee payable in this case is Rs. 561/- and the petitioner has produced six stamp papers together worth Rs. 540/- and has made up the balance by adhesive labels. The taxing officer''s note points out that under Rule 16 of the Rules framed under the Kerala Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act the Rules u/s 69 of the Kerala Stamp Act 1959 are made applicable for the sale of court-fee stamps except with regard to the rate of commission. Under Rule 36 of the Kerala Manufacture and Sale of Stamp Rules 1960, licensed vendors can sell only stamps of and below the denomination of Rs. 400/- (the taxing officer''s note fails to take note of an amendment brought about by a Notification dated 30-11-1969 substituting the figure Rs. 400/- for Rs. 100/-). Rule 5(1) of the Rules under the Kerala Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1959 requires the use of the stamps of the highest denomination. It is useful to extract the said Rule here:
5(i) When single stamps, either impressed or adhesive of the exact value required, are available, such stamps alone shall be used. Where such stamps are not available, two or more stamps may be used to make up the exact amount of fee chargeable in respect of any document in which case, a portion of such document shall be written on each sheet so used. Provided, however, that under such circumstances no stamp of a lower denomination should be used so long as one of a higher denomination is available.
Under this Rule, it is necessary to buy the highest denomination stamp which, in this case, is for Rs. 500/-. Lesser denominations are permissible only if the higher denomination is not available. The question is whether, on the facts of this case, higher denomination stamps were available and secondly, even if they were available and were not used, what is the consequence of the violation?
It is obvious, as has been explained in the note of taxing officer, that the object of this Rule is to protect the public revenue. If stamped are purchased from the licensed vendor, Government has to pay commission to him while, if they are sold by the treasury, that is the ex-officio vendor, Government does not have to pay commission to anybody. Keeping this in view, Rule 336 of the Civil Rules of Practice (Travancore-Cochin) provides that where the stamps used are of the requisite value but not of the highest denominations are purchased in smaller denominations from the licensed vendor when the same ought to have been purchased in a higher denomination from the ex-officio vendor, the Court may waive the breach of the rule provided that the loss of revenue to the State, if any, caused by such breach is made good by the party in default by payment of such amount into Court. Of course, this rule applies only to the Subordinate Courts and there is no corresponding provision in the Rules of the High Court. Strictly speaking, in the present case a stamp for Rs. 500/- should have been purchased from the ex-officio vendor. The excuse put forward is that the petitioner filed the appeal with a nominal court-fee which was returned for representation within 7 days. The party could bring the balance court-fee of Rs. 558.50 only on the last date for re-presentation of the appeal viz; 30-9-1969 and since there was no time to purchase the necessary stamp paper from the treasury as per the rules governing issue of stamp papers from the treasury the petitioner purchased the stamps from the local licensed vendor and produced them into Court. It has now to be considered whether such production of stamp papers is in order.
2. Section 77 of the Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act lays down that all fees chargeable under the Act shall be collected by stamps and Section 4 of the Act stipulates that "no document which is chargeable with fee under this Act shall be filed........or be acted on......by any Court including the High Court�.unless in respect of such document there be paid a fee of an amount not less than that indicated as chargeable under this Act." A reading of these two provisions makes it a statutory obligation to pay the fee in court-fee stamps of the value required under the Act. There is no insistence that the stamp should be of the highest denomination. Of course, Section 84 (f) provides for rules to be made regulating "the number of stamps to be used for denoting any fee chargeable under this Act." It is under this provision that Rule 5 has been promulgated.
3. Rule 5 itself contemplates the need to produce the highest denomination stamp whenever they are available. Rule 336 of the Civil Rules of Practice invests a power in the Court to waive a breach of this rule and makes it clear that the rule itself is only to guard public revenue by requiring the party to make good the commission payable by the State to the licensed vendor. Maxwell, dealing with the consequence of non-compliance with statutory prescriptions, observes at page 371, 11th Ed:
The Revenue (No. 2) Act, 1891 (c.91), s. 34 which enacted that no copy of a bill of sale should be filed in any court unless the original was produced to the officer duly stamped, did not invalidate the registration if the bill was not duly stamped when so produced. The object of the enactment was to protect the revenue, and this was thought sufficiently attained if the deed was afterwards duly stamped, without going to the extreme of holding the registration void.
It is clear that breach of procedural or formal rules should be treated as a mere irregularity if the departure from the terms of the Act is of a trivial nature or, if no substantial prejudice has been suffered by those for whose benefit the requirements were introduced, or, if serious public inconvenience would be caused by holding them to be mandatory. The ordinary criteria, evolved by Courts for determining whether procedural rules are to be regarded as mandatory, resulting in their disobedience rendering what has been done void or as directory in which case disobedience will not be visited with nullification of the act done, justify the conclusion that where there is substantial compliance with the statutory provision, the deviation in cases like this can be condoned as an irregularity.
4. Let us first consider whether within the meaning of Rule 5(1) of the Court Fee Rules it can be said that the stamp papers were not available. A party is entitled to file this proceeding on the last day permitted by the law of limitation and if he is unable to get the stamp of the required nomination from the ex-officio vendor within the time at his disposal for instituting the proceeding, it may legitimately be said that the stamp is not available. Too strict of narrow an interpretation of this expression "available" is likely to lead to serious inconvenience to parties even when they are prepared to pay the requisite court-fee. That a liberal construction should be adopted in such situations is indicated in the ruling reported in Kotamreddi Subba Reddi v. Perumareddi Venkatanarasimharedddi (71 M.L.J. 804). In these circumstances, I take the view that it may reasonably be held that the highest denomination stamp was not available to the appellant in this case when he turned-up on the last day when the court-fee had to be paid and the rules for issue of stamps from the treasury required him to apply earlier. If the Court is satisfied that he had grounds to produce lesser denomination stamp papers as in the circumstances of the present case, it may be concluded that the stamp was not available within the meaning of Rule 5 (i) of the Court Fee Rules.
5. Even assuming that there is a violation of the said rule, I am inclined to the view that it is possible for the Court to waive the irregularity on the principles I have already set out earlier. The only question is whether as contemplated in Rule 336 of the Civil Rules of Practice the party should be directed to make good to the Court in cash, the amount lost on account of vendor''s commission. I am afraid that since Rule 336 does not apply to the High Court such a levy cannot be made under the authority of law. Unless similar rules are framed by the High Court a direction to the party to pay the amount equal to the vendor''s commission would be an illegal levy. I would, therefore, direct that the stamp paper, furnished in the present case, be treated as sufficient even without the payment of the vendor''s commission.
