D.BALACHANDRAN Vs. T.C.SHANMUGAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Defendant is the Revision Petitioner. The Respondent/Plaintiff filed a Suit in O.S. No. 894 of 2007 on the file of the I Additional District Munsif Court, Erode, for recovery of possession and for arrears of rent and during the examination of PW1, he marked Ex.A2, Lease Deed, which is admittedly not registered and therefore, an Application was filed by the Petitioner in I.A. No. 1169 of 2011 to reject Ex.A2 on the ground that the said document was not duly stamped and not registered and that Application was dismissed and aggrieved by the same, this Revision filed. Mr. M. Guruprasad, the learned Counsel for the Petitioner submitted that admittedly, Ex.A2, Lease Deed was for a period of more than one year and it was not duly stamped and unregistered and therefore, the Court below ought not to have marked the document as Ex.A2 and therefore, an Application was filed to reject the document and the Court below having held that Ex.A2 has to be rejected on the ground that it was not duly stamped and unregistered one, erred in holding that having regard to the fact that the period mentioned in the Lease Deed was for a period of five years and that the period expired even before the filing of the Suit and therefore, the document need not be rejected and the rejection of the Petition by the Court below on that ground is erroneous and is liable to be set aside. He also relied upon the following judgments in support of his contention:

(2.) On the other hand, Mr. S. Chandrasekaran, the learned Counsel for the Respondent submitted that if any document is not registered, the same can be received for collateral purpose and therefore, even assuming that Ex.A2 was an unregistered, the same can be received in evidence for collateral purpose as per Section 49 of the Registration Act and therefore, the document cannot be rejected. He farther submitted that the document Ex.A2 cannot also be rejected on the ground that it was not duly stamped as no objection was raised by the Revision Petitioner when the document was marked and therefore, under Section 36 of the Stamp Act, objection cannot be raised after the document was allowed to be marked. He also relied upon the following decisions in support of his contention:

(3.) Admittedly, Ex.A2 is a Lease Deed for a period of five years and therefore, as per Section 17 of the Registration Act, the said document is compulsorily registrable. Therefore, when a document, which is compulsorily registrable is not registered, that document cannot be looked into to prove the contents of the lease and as per Section 49 of the Registration Act, such document can be received in evidence for collateral purpose. Therefore, even though, the document was marked as Ex.A2, having regard to the provision of Sections 17 & 49 of the Registration Act, the said document can be looked into only for collateral purpose as the document is not a registered document.