URMILA DEVI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard.

(2.) Six petitioners, who are mother and five sons purchased land from one Gouri Shankar Nayak. Six separate sale deeds were executed on 22.7.1999. The sale deeds in respect of petitioner no. 1 was for a consideration of Rs. 32,000/- in respect of 4 and 1/2 dhurs of land. The rest sale deeds were in respect of 8 dhurs and 1 dhurki each for a consideration of Rs. 26,000/- each. When these six sale deeds were presented for registration on 9.8.1999 they were admitted and execution thereof and receipt of consideration was admitted by the vendor before the Sub-Registrar. The documents were then received for registration upon affixing of stamp duty and payment of registration fee. Registration receipts (Chirkuts) were issued. The petitioners thereafter kept visiting the office everyday but the documents were not registered for over a month. The petitioners alleged that it was entirely for mala fide purposes at the instance of respondent-Sub-Registrar, who was demanding illegal gratification to register the documents. Being fed up, they made a written complaint to the Additional Collector, Samastipur on 23.9.1999, who by his order dated 25.9.1999 directed the Sub-Registrar to send his report in the matter forwarding the petitioner's complaint. It is said that the Sub-Registrar having come to know that the petitioner had made a complaint about his illegal act, only to cover himself up, sent a letter no. 270, dated 23.9.99 to the Collector (Annexure 4). It would be relevant to point out this is the day when written complaint was made by the petitioner to the Additional Collector. A reference to Annexure 4 would show that the Sub-Registrar, Rosera, DistrictSamastipur has sought to defend himself even without being asked to do so and apparently on having come to know that a complaint has been made, he sent his letter to the Collector. He states that the documents were presented for registration on 9.8.99. On 22.9.99 he received the complaint from one Kishore Kumar that the documents have been sought to be registered were under valued. In an effort made to clear himself he then writes that pursuant to the said complaint dated 22.9.99 he made spot enquiry and found that the documents presented for registration were proper and according to rate scheduled in this regard but he was sending his report to the Collector as the complaint was endorsed to the Collector as well.

(3.) At the cost of repetition I may state that this was a letter totally defending himself which exposes the Sub-Registrar. He was guilty concious. He was not asked to give any explanation or conduct any enquiry. He has admitted that the documents were presented for registration on 9.8.99 and the complaint, he received, was on 22.9.99 i.e. more than one and a half month after the documents had been presented for registration. He very conveniently omitted to explain as to why for a month and a half documents duly executed, the execution and consideration whereof was accepted by the vendor and chirkuts issued were lying in his office unregistered. This clearly establishes the mala fide on the part of Sub-Registrar. However, the matter did not end there. Apparently on basis of the complaint made and certain subsequent steps a Stamp Deficit Case No. 1/2000 was registered by the Additional Collector and the petitioners were noticed. They appeared and explained the situation that they had bona fide valued the land. The land adjacent to the road was valued much higher and the lands which were in the interior were valued lower. The valuation was according to the rates approved and notified. It appears in those proceedings there is reference to the matter by which explanation was called for from the Sub-Registrar. The Sub-Registrar refused to respond in spite of repeated requests and ultimately the matter was given to the Sub-Divisional Officer for enquiry. The Sub-Divisional Officer went and made enquiry and he did not find any suppression so far as value is concerned but what he reported was that if instead of six individual sale deeds a single deed could to be registered, then the stamp duty would have been much higher and therefore it appeared that while executing six different sale deeds the petitioner had sought to evade stamp duty. Accordingly, the Deputy Collector, Stamp by his order dated 13.6.2000 held petitioner guilty of evading stamp duty and levied not only the additional duty but penalty thereof for four times. This is the order impugned (Annexure 1) being dated 13.6.2000.