Plea seeking conveyance deed registration at pre-revised rates premature

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has dismissed a bunch of petitions seeking registration of conveyance deeds at the collector rates valid till March 31. The Bench, among other things, held that the request for such directions by the high court was premature as the matter had to first pass through the statutory process involving the Sub-Registrar.

The Bench ruled that the Registrar or Sub-Registrar was vested with quasi-judicial powers under the Registration Act and the Stamp Act to examine, admit or reject documents, and to assess whether the market value disclosed is correct for stamp duty purposes. As such, the High Court could not pre-empt this process or issue directions for registration based on a specific collector rate.

Justice Kuldeep Tiwari’s Bench was told that the petitioners — flat allottees who had obtained the No Objection Certificate from the Registrar of Cooperative Societies and purchased stamp papers before March 31 — could not get their conveyance deeds registered by the said date due to the online registration portal being non-functional. In the meantime, new collector rates came into effect from April 1, increasing the stamp duty payable.

Refusing to intervene, the Bench held: “Since the function of the Registrar/Sub-Registrar to evaluate the duty chargeable on market value is already held to be a quasi-judicial function, this court cannot pre-empt and pass the yearned-for directions upon the registering authority to register the conveyance deeds either on the basis of collector rates which remained in force till March 31, or on the basis of collector rates brought into force with effect from April 1.”

The high court underlined that the petitioners were required to first present themselves before the Sub-Registrar, who would then act in accordance with the statutory framework. If a deficiency in stamp duty was found, the Sub-Registrar could impound the document and refer it to the Collector for appropriate assessment.

Citing Section 47-A of the Stamp Act and other provisions of the Registration Act, the Bench reiterated that the statutory machinery had to be allowed to operate, and the court could not bypass or substitute this mechanism. Dismissing the petitions, the court concluded that the plea was “a premature motion” and directed the petitioners to avail the remedies available under the statute.

Chandigarh