Alifiya Husenbhai Keshariya vs Siddiq Ismail Sindhi

REPORTABLE 2024 INSC 457 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CIVIL APPEAL NO. OF 2024 (Arising out of SLP(C)No.729/2020)

ALIFIYA HUSENBHAI KESHARIYA … APPELLANT(S)

VERSUS

SIDDIQ ISMAIL SINDHI & ORS. … RESPONDENT(S)

J U D G M E N T

SANJAY KAROL J.,

1. Leave granted.

At the outset, we may remind ourselves of what

Krishna Iyer, J. had observed in State of Haryana v.

Darshana Devi1 that

“2. The poor shall not be priced out of the Justice market by insistence on court-fee and refusal to apply the exemptive provisions of Order 33, CPC.” Signature Not Verified Digitally signed by

2. Deepak Singh Date: 2024.05.27 14:47:52 IST The sole point for our consideration is whether a Reason:

1 (1979) 2 SCC 236

1 | SLP(C)No.729/2020 person who is entitled to receive compensation by way of

a claim before the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal can be

said to have given up its status as an ‘indigent person’,

by virtue of the amount slated to be received. In other

words, whether a person being an award holder, of

monetary compensation without actual receipt thereof,

would be disentitled from filing an appeal seeking

enhanced compensation as an indigent?

3. The factual scenario giving rise to this appeal

is :-

3.1 The appellant, who was the original claimant

before the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal, [Court of

Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (Auxiliary) & 10th

(Adhoc) Addl. District Court Jude, Jamnagar]2 in

M.A.C.P.No.255 of 2011, was injured in an accident

on 4th July 2010, while riding pillion on a bike,

which was hit by a truck. Having sustained injuries,

she was admitted for medical treatment at a hospital

for a period of fourteen days and subsequently she

underwent plastic surgery.

3.2 At the time of the accident, she was earning

2 Hereafter, ‘Tribunal’

2 | SLP(C)No.729/2020 Rs.3,000/- per month, but, post the accident, she

sustained permanent disablement, and hence had not

been able to work thereafter. A claim was filed for

Rs.10 lakhs with 18% interest and costs.

3.3 The Tribunal vide Award dated 17th October 2016,

awarded a sum of Rs.2,41,745/- with 9% interest from

the date of claim petition till the date of

realization and proportionate cost(s).

4. Dissatisfied thereby, the claimant-appellant

approached the High Court of Gujarat by way of Regular

First Appeal No.2611/2017. Misc. Civil Application

No.3/2018 was filed therein by which the claimant-

appellant prayed for permission to file the said First

Appeal as an indigent person.

5. The High Court vide judgment and order dated 7th

August, 2018 dismissed the Misc. Civil Application

observing as under :

“….3. It is a matter of record that the claimants filed claim petition before the Tribunal and claimed Rs.10,00,000/-, whereby the Tribunal by partly allowing the claim petition vide the impugned award, awarded a sum of Rs,2,41,745/- along with 9% interest from the date of claim petition till its realization.

4. In light of the aforesaid, the applicant– appellant cannot be considered to be indigent person and therefore, he has to pay

3 | SLP(C)No.729/2020 court fees first.

5. Ms. Rana, learned counsel for the applicant, however, submits that, till date, no amount is received by the applicant. It is open for the applicant to pursue the said remedy before appropriate forum.

In view of the above, present application is not entertained. Time to deposit Court fees is granted for 8 weeks from today.”

(Emphasis supplied)

6. We may refer to this Court’s decision in Mathai M.

Paikeday v. C.K. Antony3, wherein the concept of an

indigent person has been discussed at length. Relevant

extracts are reproduced as follows:-

“16. The concept of indigent person has been discussed in Corpus Juris Secundum (20 CJS Costs § 93) as following:

“§ 93. What constitutes indigency.—The right to sue in forma pauperis is restricted to indigent persons. A person may proceed as poor person only after a court is satisfied that he or she is unable to prosecute the suit and pay the costs and expenses. A person is indigent if the payment of fees would deprive one of basic living expenses, or if the person is in a state of impoverishment that substantially and effectively impairs or prevents the pursuit of a court remedy. However, a person need not be destitute. Factors considered when determining if a litigant is indigent are similar to those considered in criminal cases, and include the party's employment status and income, including income from government sources such as social security and unemployment benefits, the ownership of unencumbered assets, including real or personal property and money on deposit, the party's total indebtedness, and any financial assistance

3 (2011) 13 SCC 174

4 | SLP(C)No.729/2020 received from family or close friends. Not only personal liquid assets, but also alternative sources of money should be considered.”

17. The eligibility of person to sue in forma pauperis has been considered in American Jurisprudence (20 Am Jur 2d Costs § 100) as thus:

“§ 100. Eligibility to sue in forma pauperis; generally.—The burden of establishing indigency is on the defendant claiming indigent status, who must demonstrate not that he or she is entirely destitute and without funds, but that payments for counsel would place an undue hardship on his or her ability to provide the basic necessities of life for himself or herself and his or her family. Factors particularly relevant to the determination of whether a party to a civil proceeding is indigent are: (1) the party's employment status and income, including income from government sources such as social security and unemployment benefits; (2) the ownership of any unencumbered assets, including real or personal property and monies on deposit;

and finally (3) the party's total indebtedness and any financial assistance received from family or close friends. Where two people are living together and functioning as a single economic unit, whether married, related, or otherwise, consideration of their combined financial assets may be warranted for the purposes of determining a party's indigency status in a civil proceeding.”

7. The Code of Civil Procedure, 19084 provides for

mechanism by which a person who is indigent may file a

suit or an appeal. Order XXXIII thereof pertains to

filing of suits and Order XLIV deals with appeals by

4 Hereinafter C.P.C.

5 | SLP(C)No.729/2020 such persons.

8. In the present matter, we are concerned with an

appeal envisaged under Section 173 of the Motor Vehicle

Act, 19885.

9. Rule 1 of Order XLIV dealing with appeal filed as

an indigent person, reads as under :

“1. Who may appeal 3[as an indigent person. — Any person entitled to prefer an appeal, who is unable to pay the fee required for the memorandum of appeal, may present an application accompanied by a memorandum of appeal, and may be allowed to appeal as an indigent person, subject, in all matters, including the presentation of such application, to the provisions relating to suits by indigent persons, in so far as those provisions are applicable.”

10. The operation of the above two provisions has been

noted by this Court in R.V. Dev v. Chief Secretary, Govt.

of Kerala6, in para 8 whereof it was observed :

“8……When an application is filed by a person said to be indigent, certain factors for considering as to whether he is so within the meaning of the said provision are required to be taken into consideration therefor. A person who is permitted to sue as an indigent person is liable to pay the court fees which would have been paid by him if he was not permitted to sue in that capacity, if he fails in the suit at the trial or without trial. Payment of court fees as the scheme suggests is merely deferred. It is not altogether wiped off.”

5 Hereinafter the ‘MV Act’ 6 (2007) 5 SCC 698

6 | SLP(C)No.729/2020 (Emphasis supplied)

In regard to the application of Order XXXIII of the

Code, a perusal of the decision in Union Bank of India

v. Khader International Construction & Ors.7 reveals the

following principles :

(i) It is an enabling provision for filing of a

suit by an indigent person without paying the

court fee at the initial stage.

(ii) If the suit is decreed for the plaintiff, the

court fee would be calculated as if the

plaintiff had not originally filed the suit

as an indigent person. The said amount is

recoverable by the State in accordance with

who may ordered to pay the same in the

decree.

(iii) Even when a suit is dismissed, the court fee shall

be recoverable by the State in the form of first

charge on the subject-matter of the suit.

It was further held that –

“20…So there is only a provision for the deferred payment of the court fees and this benevolent provision is intended to help the poor litigants who are unable to pay the requisite court fee to file a suit because of their poverty.”

7 (2001) 5 SCC 22

7 | SLP(C)No.729/2020

11. The intent of Orders XXXIII and XLIV is

unmistakable. They exemplify the cherished principle

that lack of monetary capability does not preclude a

person from knocking on the doors of the Court to seek

vindication of his rights.

12. It is unquestioned that a person dissatisfied with

the amount of compensation received can file an appeal.

In the present case, for a claim of Rs.10 lakhs, the

Tribunal awarded compensation which was less than Rs.2.5

lakhs. Without commenting on the merits of the matter,

we recognize the desire of the claimant-appellant to

file an appeal.

13. Once again turning to Darshana Devi (supra), we

refer to certain observations made therein -

“5……Our perspective is best projected by Cappelletti, quoted by the Australian Law Reform Commission:

“The right of effective access to justice has emerged with the new social rights. Indeed, it is of paramount importance among these new rights since, clearly, the enjoyment of traditional as well as new social rights presupposes mechanisms for their effective protection. Such protection, moreover, is best assured by a workable remedy within the framework of the judicial system. Effective access to justice can thus be seen as the most basic requirement — the most ‘basic human right’ — of a system which purports to guarantee legal

8 | SLP(C)No.729/2020 right.” [ M. Cappelletti, Rabels, (1976) 669 at 672]

We should expand the jurisprudence of access to justice as an integral part of Social Justice and examine the constitutionalism of court-fee levy as a facet of human rights highlighted in our Nation's Constitution. If the State itself should travesty this basic principle, in the teeth of Articles 14 and 39-A, where an indigent widow is involved, a second look at its policy is overdue. The Court must give the benefit of doubt against levy of a price to enter the temple of justice until one day the whole issue of the validity of profit- making through sale of civil justice, disguised as court-fee, is fully reviewed by this Court…”

14. In the present case although the State is not the

one in appeal, the observations in regard to the

insistence upon court fees by the High Court to be taken

from the meager amount awarded as compensation even

after having recorded that she had not yet received the

said amount, has prompted us to refer to the above

extract.

15. The ground, upon which the claimant-appellant’s

application to file the appeal as an indigent person was

rejected, was that she had received compensation by way

of the Award of the Tribunal, and therefore, she was not

indigent. We find this observation to be belied by the

impugned order itself as the learned Single Judge has

9 | SLP(C)No.729/2020 recorded the submission of the counsel for the claimant-

appellant that no money stood paid to her at that point

in time. So even though she had been awarded a sum, her

indigency was not extinguished thereby. Any which way,

in our considered view, the High Court was incorrect in

rejecting the Misc. Application.

16. There is a further ground on which we find that the

High Court erred in not allowing the claimant-appellant

to file the appeal. The language used in Orders XXXIII

and XLIV so far as deferring of payment of court fees is

concerned, as was observed in Khader International

(supra), that if the suit so filed, as an indigent person

succeeds, the Court fee shall be deductible from the

amount received as a result thereof as if the person who

files the suit is not an indigent.

17. Order XLIV Rule 3(2) provides as under :

“3. Inquiry as to whether applicant is an indigent person.-(1)…… (2) Where the applicant, referred to in rule 11, is alleged to have become an indigent person since the date of the decree appealed from, the inquiry into the question whether or not he is an indigent person shall be made by the Appellate Court or, under the orders of the Appellate Court, by an officer of that Court unless the Appellate Court considers it necessary in the circumstances of the case that the inquiry should be held by the Court from whose decision the appeal is preferred.”

10 | SLP(C)No.729/2020 The Appellate Court, in accordance with the above,

did not conduct any inquiry. The same was necessitated

since nothing on record speaks of the claimant-appellant

having filed the claim before the learned Tribunal as an

indigent person, in which case she would be covered under

Rule 3(1), which provides that no further inquiry would

be required in respect of a person who was allowed to

sue or appeal as an indigent person if they make an

affidavit to the effect that they have not ceased to be

an indigent unless the Government pleader objects or

disputes such claim in which case an inquiry shall be

held by the Appellate Court or under the orders thereof.

18. On both counts, one, that she had not yet received

the money and, therefore, at the time of filing the

appeal she was arguably indigent; and second, that the

statutory requirement under the C.P.C., as described

above, was not met – the order of the learned Single

Judge has to be set aside.

19. Having observed as above, we allow the appeal and

set aside the impugned judgment and order dated 7th

August, 2018 of the learned Single Judge passed in Misc.

Civil Application No.3/2018 in Regular First Appeal

11 | SLP(C)No.729/2020 No.2611/2017. It would have been ideal for us to have

remanded the matter to the High Court for an inquiry to

be conducted by its orders in accordance with Order XLIV,

however, in the peculiar facts and circumstances of this

case, keeping in view that considerable time has passed

since the impugned order in the First Appeal, we grant

liberty to the appellant to appeal as an indigent person

observing that, at the relevant time, her application

ought to have been looked into, verified and then ordered

upon, which was not done.

20. While recognizing that in ordinary circumstances

this Court should not impose timelines for disposal of

cases, but considering the facts of this case, in

particular, that the Award of the Tribunal is dated 17th

October, 2016, and the rejection of Misc. Civil

Application seeking permission to file the appeal as an

indigent person before the High Court, is dated 7th

August, 2018, we request the High Court that the appeal

filed by the claimant-appellant be decided

expeditiously, and preferably within a period of six

months from the date of receipt of the copy of this

judgment. We direct the Registry to immediately

transmit the same to the learned Registrar General of

12 | SLP(C)No.729/2020 the High Court of Gujarat for necessary follow-up

action.

Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed

of.

…………………………………………J. [J.K. MAHESHWARI]

…………………………………………J. [SANJAY KAROL] New Delhi;

May 27, 2024.

13 | SLP(C)No.729/2020