JUDGMENT : Burkitt, J.:— This case is to some extent a matter of first impression. What happened was this. The plaintiffs-respondents instituted a suit for pre-emption of a sale under which five parcels of property passed. The fifth of those parcels was one quarter of a well. Before the Court of first instance an objection was raised that the pre-empted property had been improperly valued, and eventually this well which for pre-emptive purposes had been valued at Rs. 100, was held to be worth Rs. 150. Thereupon the Munsif called upon the plaintiffs to pay the deficient Court-fee duty on the 50 Rs. This the plaintiffs refused to do, and abandoned their claim to the well. Thereupon the Munsif, professing to act under section 10(2) of the Court-Fees Act, dismissed the. Entire suit. 2. On appeal the District Judge has remanded the record under section 562 for re-trial. Hence this appeal. It has been contended that the order of the Munsif was right and ought not to have been disturbed. Not without a good deal of hesitation we have come to the conclusion that the order of the District Judge is right It seems to us that when a plaintiff in the initial stage of the litigation abandons a portion of his claim, he is not compellable to pay Court-fees upon that claim under the penalty of having the whole of his suit dismissed. The matter is, we admit, one which is capable of argument on both sides, and it is with some hesitation that we have come to this decision. The state of things which appears in this case is manifestly one which was not considered when section 10 of the Court Fees Act was enacted. We must therefore dismiss this appeal, but at the same time we desire to say that we do not profess to approve of or indeed to comprehend the force of the learned Judge's observation as to section 373 of the Code of Civil Procedure, Section 373 is in no way in point in this case. We make no order as to costs.