( 1 ) THIS Civil Revision Petition has been filed by the plaintiffs in o. S. No. 245 of 2007 on the file of the Principal Junior Civil Judge at Bhongir, nalgonda District.

( 2 ) THE plaintiffs filed the above suit for injunction. Along with the plaint, they filed an agreement of sale and some other documents. During pendency of the suit, the counsel for the plaintiffs filed a Memo stating that the matter is settled amicably out of Court and the plaintiffs intends to withdraw the suit as not pressed. In view of the Memo and in the presence of both parties, the Principal Junior Civil Judge, Bhongir dismissed the suit as not pressed without costs, through the order dated 13. 07. 2007. Later the plaintiffs filed I. A. No. 656 of 2007 under Order 13, Rule VII (2) read with section 151 of C. P. C. requesting the Court to return the unmarked documents including the agreement of sale dated 17. 10. 2006. The trial Court ordered return of documents 2 to 5 and in respect of document No. 1 i. e. , agreement of sale, the trial Court withheld the same observing that the document is insufficiently stamped and the same has to be treated as a document under section 47 (A) of the Indian Stamp Act and to be considered as a sale deed as the agreement was coupled with possession, which has to be impounded by collecting stamp duty and penalty. The trial Court further directed that if the plaintiffs are willing to pay the stamp duty and penalty in the Court, the section to collect the amount or else to send the document to the Collector for levying of stamp duty and penalty and thereafter return the document to the plaintiffs.

( 3 ) BEING aggrieved by the order of the Junior Civil Judge, Bhongir, dated 13. 07. 2007, the present Civil Revision Petition has been filed contending that as the suit was disposed of, the Court became functus officio, therefore, it ought to have returned the unmarked document without resorting to collect the stamp duty and penalty on agreement of sale; that the trial Court ought to have observed that no relief is sought for on the basis of the document and it is only a document filed for collateral purpose; that the trial Court has no power to impound the document after disposal of the suit and Section 33 of the Indian stamp Act has no application to the present case.

( 4 ) THE learned counsel for the revision petitioners-plaintiffs relied on a judgment of this Court in Lokara Om Kumar v. baikan Satyanarayana and others, 2007 (3) ALT 647 wherein this Court held that a document not marked in evidence has to be returned to the parties, who produced the same, without retaining them till the disposal of the suit. The decision is not directly applicable to the facts of the present case.

( 5 ) HOWEVER, the learned counsel drew the attention of this Court to a judgment rendered by Kerala High Court in Varghese v. State of Kerala and others, AIR 1989 Kerala 248 representing that the question that arose in the present case was dealt with by the Kerala High Court in the above decision and by considering the scope of Section 33 of the Indian Stamp Act, the Kerala High Court held as follows:

"if the document is merely presented along with the plaint, it cannot be said that the document was produced as contemplated under S. 33 of the Stamp Act. If the plaintiff intended to use the document as an item of evidence, then only the court can consider that it was a document 'produced' and the same can be impounded by the court. The Court has to judicially determine the matter as soon as the document is tendered in evidence and before it is marked as an exhibit in the case. Once the case is over and the decree was signed and sealed or it can no longer be considered to be part of the judicial record and cannot therefore properly come before the court again in the performance of its function and the court is not competent to compound the same. "

( 6 ) IN the case covered by the above decision, the revision petitioner filed a suit for injuncti

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