government took over the property and managed the property through the Departed Asians Property Custodian Board, the respondent in this application. The club house has since been used as a mess for Senior Prisons Officers. In 1983, the applicants applied for repossession of the property under the Expropriate Properties Act. 1982 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) but their application was rejected on the ground that the lease under which the applicants had held the property had expired in 1981 and the property had reverted to Kampala City Council, the controlling authority. The applicants instituted a suit in the High Court against the respondent seeking for certain declaratory orders, inter alia, that the Act applied to the suit land. The trial judge in the High Court dismissed the suit. On appeal holding that the suit land was within the provisions of section 1(1) (c) of the Act. thus this Court in effect declared the applicants former owners of the suit land. The applicants filed a bill of costs claiming shs.* or prosecuting the appeal in this court. The registrar of this court in his capacity as taxing officer taxed the bill under the provisions of Rule 108 of the Rules of the Court and paragraph 9(2) of the third schedule to the Rules and allowed shs. 70,000,000/= as the instruction fee. The taxing officer arrived at that figure on the erroneous basis that the value of the suit property is shs. 2,100,000,000/=. This value was assessed by valuers who included in their assessment the property developed after the expulsion of 1972. The respondents were dissatisfied with the decision of the taxing officer and so referred the matter to a single judge of this Court under Rule 109(1) and (2) of the Rules of the Court. Platt, J.S.C. heard the reference and allowed the appeal by reducing the amount of the instruction fee as indicated earlier from shs. 70,000,000/= to shs. 7m/=. From that decisions the applicants made this reference by virtue of subrule (5) of Rule 109. The reference contains six grounds. The principles upon which this court considers a reference such as this are those contained in Rule 109(1) and (2) and paragraph 9(2) and (3) of the 3rd schedule to the Rules. Platt, J.S.C., considered these principles fully in his ruling before he allowed the appeal. These principles have been the subject of consideration by this court and its predecessors in the following decisions:-