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2012 DIGILAW 1596 (RAJ)

Deepa Ram v. Kishan Chand

2012-07-20

R.S.CHAUHAN

body2012
JUDGMENT 1. - The petitioner has challenged the order dated 29.11.2011 passed by the Additional District Judge, Anoopgarh, District Sriganganagar, whereby the learned Judge has directed the original agreement to sale to be returned to the petitioner. The petitioner was further directed to submit the certified copy of the agreement to sale before the Collector, Registration and Stamps. He was further directed to pay the requisite stamp duty and penalty, if any, imposed by the Collector (Stamps). 2. The learned counsel for the petitioner has contended that any objection to the admissibility of the agreement could be taken by the respondent only when the Floating Frame agreement was about to be marked as an exhibit during the course of trial. Therefore, the impugned order is pre-mature. In order to buttress this contention, the learned counsel has relied upon the case of Jogindero Devi & Ors. v. Gurjant Singh & Ors. [2006 (1) RRT 259]. 3. Heard the learned counsel and perused the impugned order. 4. Section 37 of the Rajasthan Stamps Act is as under:- 37-Examination and impounding of instruments.- (1) Every person having by law or consent of parties authority to receive evidence, and every person incharge of a public office, except an officer of a police, before whom any instrument, chargeable, in his opinion, with duty, is produced or comes in the performance of his functions, shall if it appears to him that such instrument is not duly stamped, impound the same. (2) For that purpose every such person shall examine every instrument so chargeable and so produced or coming before him, in order to ascertain whether it is stamped with a stamp of the value and description required by the law in force in the State when such instrument was executed or first executed : Provided that,- (a) nothing herein contained shall be deemed to require any Magistrate or Judge of a Criminal Court to examine or impound, if he does not think fit so to do, any instrument coming before him in the course of any proceeding other than a proceeding under Chapter XI or Part D of Chapter X of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Act No. 2 of 1974); (b) in the case of a Judge of a High Court, the duty of examining and impounding any instrument under this section may be delegated to such officer as the Court appoints in this behalf. (3) For the purposes of this section in cases of doubt,- (a) the State Government may determine what offices shall be deemed to be public offices; and (b) the State Government may determine who shall be deemed to be persons incharge of public offices. (4) When a person incharge of a public office, during the course of inspection or otherwise, detects from an instrument or copy thereof or when it appears therefrom to the person referred to in sub-section (1) that the instrument is not duly stamped, such person shall forthwith make a reference to the Collector in that matter. (5) The Collector may, suo moto or on such reference, call for the original instrument for ascertaining whether it is duly stamped and the instrument so produced shall be deemed to have been produced or come before him in the performance of his functions and in case the original instrument is not produced within the period specified by the Collector, he may require the payment of the proper duty or the amount required to make up the same together with the penalty under section 44. 5. The argument raised by the learned counsel is highly misplaced as according to Section 37 of Stamps Act, it is the duty of the Court to impound and send the document to the Collector (Stamps) if the document were insufficiently stamped. 5. The argument raised by the learned counsel is highly misplaced as according to Section 37 of Stamps Act, it is the duty of the Court to impound and send the document to the Collector (Stamps) if the document were insufficiently stamped. Merely because, an application under Section 35 of the Stamp Act has been allowed before reaching the stage of marking all the documents as exhibit, the impugned order cannot be faulted. 6. The case of Jogindero Devi (supra) can be distinguished from the present case on the factual matrix. 7. Hence, this court does not find illegality or perversity in the impugned order dated 29.11.2011; the petition is devoid of any merit; it is, hereby, dismissed.Petition dismissed. *******