SC clears way for court fee hike in Delhi

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the way for a hike in court fees in Delhi by lifting the curbs imposed by the Delhi High Court on a law enacted by the government for the purpose.

The apex court bench of Justice GS Singhvi and Justice SJ Mukhopadhaya stayed the high court order restraining the operation of Delhi Court Fees (Amendment) Act, 2012, after Solicitor General Rohinton Nariman mentioned the matter before the court.

Nariman told the court that already two benches of the high court have declined to hear the matter as he pleaded for the stay of the August 9 order of the court.

The Delhi government in its petition said that enhancement of the court fees was necessitated because the cost of administration of justice has increased manifold since 1958, when the court fees was last increased for Delhi.

The Delhi government told the court that since 1958, the cost of administration of justice in the national capital has increased from less than Rs 6 lakh to Rs 575.92 crore in 2011-12. This is likely to touch Rs 600 crore in 2012-13. The expected recovery in the current financial year even after the hike would be Rs 400 crore.

The total recoveries by way of court fees, the petition said, was just 10.46 percent of what the government had spent on the court in Delhi in the financial year 2011-12.

The court was told that the hiked court fees in Delhi were considerably lower than those prevailing in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Karnataka.

The petition said that even if revised court fees were implemented, the state government would not recover the entire cost incurred by it on the administration of justice.

The petition said that despite the Delhi Court Fees (Amendment) Act, 2012 coming into force, the high court stayed its operation on the mere ground that the petition filed by the Delhi High Court Bar Association and others requires to be considered.

Assailing the high court order of ad-interim stay, the petition said that granting stay of a legislative enactment on a mere finding that issues raised required to be considered was clearly contrary to the position settle by the apex court in its earlier judgments.