No document of any of the kinds specified in the first or second Schedule to this Act annexed, as chargeable with fees, shall be filed, exhibited or recorded in, or shall be received or furnished by, any of the High Courts in any case coming before such Court in the exercise of its extraordinary original civil jurisdiction;
or in the exercise of its extraordinary original criminal jurisdiction;
or in the exercise of its jurisdiction as regards appeals from the judgments of two or more Judges of the said Court, or of a division Court;
or in the exercise of its jurisdiction as regards appeals from the Courts subject to its superintendence;
or in the exercise of its jurisdiction as a Court of reference or revision;
unless in respect of such document there be paid a fee of an amount not less than that indicated by either of the said Schedules as the proper fee for such document.
Legal Commentary & Landmark Judgments: Section 4
Section 4 of the Court-Fees Act, 1870 prohibits High Courts from receiving, filing, or acting upon any document unless the statutory court fee prescribed in the Schedules has been duly paid.
The prohibition applies across all departments and registries of the High Court. The section operates to protect State revenue, ensuring that no litigant invokes the constitutional or statutory appellate machinery of the High Court without discharging the fiscal liability attached to the judicial proceeding.
Under Section 4, a memorandum of appeal presented with deficit court fee is initially defective. However, the High Court exercises equitable discretion under Section 149 CPC to grant time for making up the deficiency. Once the deficit fee is deposited within the extended period, the appeal is deemed to have been validly instituted on the date of original presentation for limitation purposes.