JAGADEESH Vs. B M BILLAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AS against the docket order passed in I. A. No. 428 of 2005 made in O. S. No. 137 of 2005 passed by the District munsif Court, Ootacamund, directing the plaintiff to pay the stamp duty with penalty to receive the unstamped and unregistered document in evidence, this revision has been filed by the revision petitioner/plaintiff.

(2.) THE mortgage deed dated 5-3-2001 is a document which has to be compulsorily registered under Section 17 of the Registration Act. Yet, the said deed could be admitted in evidence to establish possession only if the same is properly stamped. In that case it has to be valued as per Article 40 of the schedule-I of the Stamp Act. If it, is calculated on that basis, it should have been stamped with Rs. 18. 800/- 11 times of penalty which would come to Rs. 2,06,800/ -. In spite of time given by the learned Trial judge the plaintiff/revision petitioner has not chosen to pay the stamp duty with penalty, but has preferred this revision.

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the revision petitioner pressed into service a decision of the punjab High Court in AIR 1966 Punjab 293 wherein it has been held that the executant of a document ought not to be subjected to the maximum penalty even if the document is found to be under stamped, unless an attempt has been made to evade the payment of the property stamp duty by trying to disguise the true nature of the document by drafting it in misleading terms. But the said decision has arisen out of a four references made under Section 57 of the Indian stamp Act by the Chief Controlling Revenue authority, Delhi in the Income-tax proceedings. This decision is on different footing and on different context and therefore has no applicability to the facts of the present case, where the unstamped and unregistered mortgage deed is intended to be marked in evidence.