VENKATRAMAN GANAP HEGDE Vs. SHANKARNARAYAN SITARAM BHAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The ground upon which the applicant asks this Court to interfere under Section 115 of the Code is that the lower Courts failed to exercise their jurisdiction in not sending the promissory note sued upon to the Collector to be dealt with under the rules framed under the Indian Stamp Act and that the lower Court acted illegally in the exercise of its jurisdiction in dismissing the suit altogether.

(2.) The suit was brought upon a demand promissory note which required a one anna stamp. It was not stamped with a one anna stamp, but with four postal stamps of a quarter anna each. The rules made under the Indian Stamp Act permit of the stamping, of documents requiring a duty of one anna with either an adhesive stamp of one anna, or two stamps of half an anna. But that is the only variation permitted from the statutory provision that a one anna stamp is required.

(3.) In this case, therefore, the promissory note was not duly stamped. Section 35 of the Indian Stamp Act says "no instrument chargeable with duty shall be admitted in evidence for any purpose by any person having authority to receive evidence, or shall be acted upon, unless such instrument is duly stamped, provided that any such instrument not being an instrument chargeable with a duty of one anna only, or a bill of exchange or promissory note, shall, subject to all just exceptions, be admitted in evidence on payment of the duty with which the same is chargeable, or, in the case of an instrument insufficiently stamped, of the amount required to make up such duty, together with a penalty of five rupees, or, when ten times the amount of the proper duty or deficient portion thereof exceeds five rupees, of a sum equal to ten times such duty or portion."