RABIYA BASHEER ALI Vs. C DEVENDTA PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Tenant is the revision petitioner. The landlord/respondent filed application for eviction and the tenant/revision petitioner marked Exhibit R-1 and thereafter, the landlord filed application to reject Exhibit R-1 stating that Exhibit R-1 consists of two documents and the first document is properly valued and stamped and the second document is a supplementary lease agreement and that document is not duly stamped and unregistered one and therefore, that document cannot be marked in evidence and therefore, the said document has to be rejected. That petition was allowed and the revision petitioner was directed to pay stamp duty penalty for the second document viz., not duly stamped and unregistered document and that was challenged in appeal and the appellate authority modified the order and directed to send the supplementary lease deed to the office for fixation of stamp duty and after fixation of the stamp duty by the office if the tenant failed to pay stamp duty thereafter, the Trial Court has to impound the supplementary lease deed and forward the same to the Collector and that order is challenged in this revision.

(2.) Mr. P.B. Ramanujam, learned counsel for the revision petitioner submitted that the Courts below, without properly appreciating the provisions of the Indian Stamp Act, erred in directing the petitioner to pay stamp duty and under Section 36 of the Indian Stamp Act, once a document is marked in evidence, no person can question the document stating that the document is not duly stamped and therefore, the document in question is already marked as Exhibit R-1 and having kept quiet when the document was marked, it is not open to the respondent to raise any objection at a later stage and that is prohibited under Section 36 of the Indian Stamp Act and relied upon the judgment in Shyamal Kumar Roy v. Sushil Kumar Agarwal, 2007 1 MadLJ 617, Javer Chand v. Pukhraj Surana, 1961 AIR(SC) 1655 and Chilakuri Gangulappa v. Revenue Divisional Officer, Madanapalle, 2001 2 MadLJ 33 in support of his contention.

(3.) Learned counsel for the respondent submitted that under Section 33 of the Indian Stamp Act, a statutory obligation is cast upon all the authorities to impound a document while receiving a document when the document is not duly stamped and under the provisions of the Indian Stamp Act, a document cannot be considered for collateral purpose when it is not duly stamped and that can be considered only when the document is not registered under Section 49 of the Registration Act and as the document is not properly stamped, the document is liable to be rejected.