Pecuniary jurisdiction cannot be challenged belatedly on the basis of a plaintiff’s cross-examination admission.

The petitioners, defendants 1 and 2 in a partition suit filed in 2012, sought return of the plaint under Order VII Rule 10 CPC, contending that the suit property’s value exceeded the trial court’s pecuniary limit of Rs.1,00,000.

They relied on the plaintiff’s cross-examination in December 2019, in which she stated that the property was worth approximately Rs.4,00,000 when the suit was filed.

Although the defendants had raised a valuation objection in their 2012 written statement, they filed the application only in September 2021, after issues had been framed and evidence had commenced.

The trial court dismissed the application, and the defendants challenged that order in revision.

Whether the plaintiff’s statement during cross-examination was sufficient to establish that the suit exceeded the trial court’s pecuniary jurisdiction.

Whether the defendants’ objection to pecuniary jurisdiction, raised after commencement of trial, satisfied the requirements of Section 21 CPC.

Section 21 CPC permits an objection to pecuniary jurisdiction to be entertained only where it was raised in the court of first instance at the earliest opportunity and, where issues are settled, at or before settlement, and there has been a consequent failure of justice (Koopilan Uneen’s Daughter Pathumma v. Koopilan Uneen’s Son Kuntalan Kutty, (1981) 3 SCC 589).

The Court also applied the principle that pecuniary jurisdiction cannot be determined solely from a plaintiff’s oral admission in cross-examination; market value cannot be fixed on oral evidence alone (Marimuthu v. Pushpathai @ Maniammal; Durgamba v. Jagadeeshwari; Govindaraj v. Ponnammal).

It relied on Bharat Bhushan Gupta v. Pratap Narain Verma, Civil Appeal No. 4577 of 2022, which held that an order determining suit-property value by reference to the plaintiff’s cross-examination statement was not sustainable.

Section 12 of the Tamil Nadu Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act was also relevant to the defendants’ failure to take procedural steps to have the disputed valuation determined.

The Court found that the application rested principally on a statement made in 2019—nearly eight years after the plaint was filed—and that the statement did not, by itself, establish the property’s value for determining pecuniary jurisdiction at the time of institution.

Although the written statement had raised a valuation objection, the defendants had not sought a determination under Section 12 of the Tamil Nadu Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act or pursued an additional issue on valuation.

The objection was pursued only after issues were framed and trial had progressed, and the defendants neither established lack of jurisdiction nor demonstrated consequent failure of justice as required by Section 21 CPC.

It dismissed the civil revision petition, confirmed the trial court’s order dismissing the application for return of the plaint, made no order as to costs, and closed the connected miscellaneous petition.