Pleading Title by Adverse Possession Doesn't Make Injunction Suit Declaratory for Court Fee: Rajasthan High Court

On 17.08.2026 the petitioners filed a suit over a vacant plot in Jodhpur seeking a permanent injunction against interference and threatened dispossession on 16.08.2026, pleading possession of their predecessors since 1987 and their own since 2010 and claiming that title had already accrued by adverse possession (paras 3-4). On 19.08.2026 the trial court (Additional Civil Judge, Jodhpur Metropolitan) treated the first relief as a declaration of title and, without registering the plaint, directed valuation on market value under Section 24(b) of the Rajasthan Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1961 (paras 2, 4). With lawyers abstaining, the High Court decided the writ on the papers without notice to the respondents, who had not entered the suit (paras 1, 5-6).

Section 11(1) requires the court to decide the proper fee before registration, but only on the materials and allegations in the plaint; it does not authorise deciding disputed questions of fact or law (paras 8-9). An assertion explaining the source of an existing right cannot be mechanically converted into a declaratory relief; the nature of a suit is gathered from the plaint as a whole and the substantive relief sought (paras 10, 24). Relying on K.M. Krishna Reddy, the Court noted that the involvement of title or adverse possession does not automatically make an injunction suit declaratory (para 14). Whether possession was hostile, when it became adverse and whether the statutory period was completed need pleadings, issues and evidence, and cannot be decided in a mini-trial on court fee, as Sharda Devi held (paras 16-17). With no written statement on record, the court below had anticipated a defence and read the first part of the prayer in isolation from the injunction that met the immediate cause of action (paras 18, 23). Section 11(2) lets a defendant object to valuation later (para 21).