Thiruvananthapuram | The state Assembly on Monday referred an amendment to the Kerala Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act, 1959, to the Subject Committee for consideration.

The amendment, moved at the request of Chief Minister V D Satheesan, proposes that additional court fees collected in cases settled out of court should not be refunded.

Moving the amendment in the Assembly, Satheesan said the proposal followed practical difficulties in refunding additional court fees paid by litigants in cases settled through alternative dispute resolution under Section 89 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

He said 70 per cent of the amount collected for the Legal Aid Fund was diverted to the Advocates Welfare Fund and 30 per cent to the Advocates Clerks Welfare Fund.

After 10 per cent was set aside from each fund for providing basic amenities to litigants, the remaining amounts were deposited in the respective funds.

Since the money had already been distributed for various purposes, returning it to litigants posed practical difficulties, he said.

Satheesan said the High Court had directed that Section 76 of the Kerala Court Fees and Suits Valuation Act be amended to provide that additional court fees collected in such cases would not be refunded under any circumstances.

The proposed amendment seeks to insert a new Section 76A into the Act, specifying that additional court fees collected in cases settled out of court would not be refundable. However, the amendment would not affect cases in which courts had already ordered refunds before the proposed provision came into force, or cases settled out of court in which judgments had not yet been pronounced, he said.

The CM requested that the amendment be referred to the Subject Committee for detailed consideration.

Although LDF MLAs objected to certain provisions in the amendment, they did not press their objections, prompting Speaker Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan to refer the matter to the Subject Committee.