( 1 ) THIS Civil Revision Petition is directed against the order and decree, dated 20-02-2002, passed by the Senior Civil Judge, Darsi, dismissing the application in I. A. No. 55 of 2002 in O. S. No. 16 of 2001, filed under Section-151 of the Code of Civil Procedure to permit the petitioners to mark the documents, dated 29-07-1983 and 21-05-1986 as exhibits for collateral purpose to prove the nature of their possession under the said documents after collecting necessary stamp duty and penalty, if any, on those documents.

( 2 ) THE petitioners are the defendants and the respondents are the plaintiffs. The suit is filed for declaration of title and permanent injunction. For the sake of convenience, the parties will be referred to as arrayed in the suit.

( 3 ) THE whole dispute is between the wife of the illatom son-in-law and two brothers who are the grand children of one late Pitchi Reddy. It appears that late Pitchi Reddy agreed to give the alleged illatom son-in-law by name Venkataswamy a share in the joint family properties along with his sons. In that process, some partition was also effected, of course, there is a dispute as regards the shares, which has snow walled into the present shape of litigation.

( 4 ) THE claim of the defendants is that two different extents of land were sold away by way of executing two agreements of sale, dated 29-07-1983 and 21-05-1986 for a consideration along with delivery of possession. Those documents were executed on stamped papers, which were sought to be marked by the defendants more particularly the 1st defendant in order to show that pursuant to the above said insufficiently stamped and unregistered documents, the possession has been delivered from the respective dates of the execution of the said documents and accordingly the defendants are in possession of the property.

( 5 ) WHEREAS the contention of the plaintiffs appears to be that partition of certain items of properties to all the parties was effected long back and as the defendants have been interfering with their peaceful possession of their respective properties, they filed the suit for declaration of title and permanent injunction. Hence, the defendants have filed the present application seeking permission of the court to mark those documents as exhibits for collateral purpose in order to demonstrate their possession. The said request of the defendants was seriously objected to mainly on the ground that the said documents were allegedly in the nature of sale deeds, which are unregistered and insufficiently stamped and as such they are not admissible in evidence for any purpose.

( 6 ) NOW, the question that falls for consideration is:"whether the unstamped or insufficiently stamped and unregistered documents are admissible in evidence? In HUSSAIN BEGUM vs. M. RANGA RAO, a learned single Judge of this Court while dealing with a lease deed observed that "in view of the fact that Ex. B-1 is an unregistered lease deed, it is not admissible according to Section-49 of the Registration Act. No doubt, in the explanation appended thereto document, which per se is not admissible, for want of registration can be considered by the Court for collateral purpose. The factum of lease being the contentious issue, Ex. B-1 cannot be pressed into service to prove the possession of the defendants otherwise independent of the document. "

( 7 ) THE learned counsel for both the parties places reliance on the said judgment of a learned single Judge of this Court. But, from a careful reading of the said judgment and the facts thereof, it is to be noticed that one of the factual aspects, particularly regarding lease deed, before the learned single Judge, was that in what capacity the defendants are in possession inasmuch as the possession of the defendants therein was an undisputed fact.

( 8 ) EVEN from the observations recorded above, it could be seen that the learned single Judge found that even though the document per se is not admis