Q1.
(a) Principles of Civil Procedure Code apply, not merely to the award of costs, but also to the award of extra allowance or special costs. Courts are authorised to allow such special allowances, not to inflict a penalty on the unsuccessful party, but to indemnify the successful litigant for actual expenses incurred by him.
(b) If in any suit or other proceeding including an execution proceeding but excluding an appeal or a revision, any party objects to the claim or defence on the ground that the claim or defence or any part of it is, as against the objector, false or vexatious to the knowledge of the party by whom it has been put forward, and if thereafter, as against the objector, such claim or defence is disallowed, abandoned or withdrawn in whole or in part, the Court, if it so thinks fit, may after recording its reasons for holding such claim or defence to be false or vexatious, make an order for the payment, to the objector by the party by whom such claim or defence has been put forward, of costs by way of compensation.
(c) No Court shall make any such order for the payment of an amount exceeding three thousand rupees or exceeding the limits of its pecuniary jurisdiction, whichever amount is less :
(d) Provided that where the pecuniary limits of the jurisdiction of any Court exercising the jurisdiction of a Court of small causes under the Provincial Small Causes Courts Act or under a corresponding law in force in any part of India to which the said Act does not extend and not being a Court constituted under such Act or law, are less than two hundred and fifty rupees, the High Court may empower such Court to award as costs under this provision any amount not exceeding two hundred and fifty rupees and not exceeding those limits by more than one hundred rupees.
(e) Provided further that the High Court may limit the amount which any Court or class of Courts is empowered to award under this provision. It is to be noted that the huge costs are normally awarded in writ proceedings and public interest litigations, and not in a civil litigation.
