BALJINDER SINGH Vs. MOHAMMAD C. MUSHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PLAINTIFF -Petitioner filed the suit out of which this revision arises for recovery of some money against the Defendant opposite party. While the suit was pending in the trial Court the Plaintiff filed a document which was marked 'V'. He subsequently filed 2 petitions one for impounding the document and the other for marking it as an exhibit. The Defendant claimed that the document should be impounded as a bond and therefore before it was admitted into evidence the Plaintiff should pay stamp duty and penalty as required for a bond. The trial Court after hearing the parties came to the conclusion that the said document was a bond and therefore called upon the Plaintiff -Petitioner to pay stamp duty and penalty on the said document as required in the case of a bond. As per the order of the trial Court the Plaintiff was asked to pay Rs. 29/ - as stamp duty and Rs. 290/ - as penalty. It is against this order the present Civil Revision has been filed.

(2.) THE main controversy therefore is as to whether the document referred to above is a bond. The recitals in the bond thus: I, Sri Musha son of Shiva Mohammad, Main Road, Rourkela -1, House No. 282, borrowed Rs. 2000/ - (Rupees two thousand only) for business purpose from S - Balinder Singh son of S. Soudagar Singh C/o Sardar Hotel, Tarapur Gate, Rourkela -1 on interest basis for a period of one year.

(3.) SCHEDULE 1 Article 15 of the Stamp Act gives the proper stamp duty payable for different bonds according to amount or value secured under them. The aforesaid definition of a bond does not mean that a document in order to be a bond must fulfil the requirements of all 3 clauses namely (3), (b) and (c) of Section 2(5) of the Stamp Act. An the 3 clauses in the definition of the bond must be disjunctively taken. So if any document comes within the purview of anyone of the 3 clauses it will be a bond even though the requirements of the other clauses are not satisfied Saudamini Dei @ Hazari v. Bishnu Charan Jena, 21 (1075) C.L.T. 1277. It follows therefore that the aforesaid definition envisages 3 classes of bonds. This position is not disputed before me. Mrs. A.K. Padhi the learned Counsel for the opposite party urges that the document in question is one which comes under the definition of a bond as given in Section 2(5) Clause (b) of the Stamp Act. According to her the said instrument is attested by a witness and its recitals do not show that anything is payable to order or bearer although under the said document the Defendant obliges himself to pay money to the Plaintiff. Therefore, the document comes under Clause (b) of the definition. On the other hand Mr. S.C. Mohapatra, the learned Counsel for the Petitioner says that the Stamp Act is a fiscal statute and therefore it should not be used to arm a litigant with a weapon of technicality to meet the case of his opponent. The provisions of the enactment are to be construed in the interest of the revenue only. Therefore, while interpreting the provisions of this enactment interpretation favourable to the citizens should be adopted. For this proposition reliance is placed upon a decision reported in Hindustan Steel Ltd. v. Dilip Construction Co., A.I.R. 1969 S.C. 1158. Mrs. Padhi appearing for the opposite party however does not oppose this contention of Mr. Mohapatra though she submits that where an instrument comes within the definition of a bond merely because the party relying upon it has to pay a heavy penalty and stamp duty an attempt should not be made to take out the said document from the category of a bond. There is sufficient force in this contention of Mrs. Padhi. But before deciding whether a particular document belongs to a particular category the first and foremost thing is to examine its contents and the other formalities observed therein. If there is no ambiguity in the recitals and formalities observed in the document bring it under a particular category, the document must be placed in that category and other attending circumstances and intention of parties will not weigh in order to find out to which category the document belongs. Reference may be made in this connection to a decision reported in M/s. Patel Stone Trading Co. Nagpur v. Ram Sing, A.I.R. 1975 Born. 19. The relevant passage from the aforesaid decision may be extracted below: