IMPORTANT POINT
Matter regarding admissibility of improperly stamped document does not become final on receiving said document in evidence.

1. The petitioner herein is the plaintiff in OS No.94 of 2006 on the file of II Additional Senior Civil Judge, Mahaboobnagar. The said suit was filed for specific performance of an agreement of sale in respect of 30 plots in an extent of Ac.1-20 gts., in the layout plan in Survey Nos.13, 14 and 15, situated at Kalwakurthy town.

2. The first defendant filed a written statement and the same was adopted by the defendants 2 and 3. The fifth defendant filed a separate written statement.

3. During the course of evidence, Exs.A1 and A2 we re marked by PW.1 apart from other Exs.A3 to A28 on 15.10.2014. Ex.A1 was the agreement of sale dated 19.05.1999 and Ex.A2 was the agreement of sale dated 25.06.1999.

4. The defendants in the suit filed IA No.27 of 2015 in the said suit to de-exhibit the said Exs.A1 and A2 and collect proper stamp duty and penalty stating that in the written statement filed by defendant No.1 it was specifically stated that the said two agreements were not properly stamped as there was a recital in the said agreements that the possession of property was delivered to the plaintiff and thus, they are inadmissible in evidence. However, when the Court directed the office to determine the payment of stamp duty and penalty on those documents, the office wrongly calculated the stamp duty and penalty and collected less stamp duty and penalty on those documents without looking into the recitals in the documents with regard to delivery of possession. After collection of stamp duty and penalty, those documents were marked on 15.10.2014 under the mistaken impression that proper stamp duty and penalty was paid. In those circumstances, the defendants wanted to de-exhibit the said two agreements of sale.

5. A counter was filed by the plaintiff stating that two agreements of sale were executed on stamp papers worth of Rs.50/- and Rs.100/- respectively. With respect to the agreement of sale executed on Rs.50/- stamp paper, the Court imposed stamp duty and penalty, the amount was already remitted and in view of the same, the said document was marked as exhibit without any objection from the defendants. Therefore, the defendants cannot raise objection at the stage of cross-examination.

6. The lower Court observed that the recitals in Ex.A1 - agreement of sale dated 19.05.1999 disclose that the deceased first defendant agreed to sell the land of an extent of Ac.7-00 in Survey Nos.13 to 15 at Kalwakurthy, received an amount of Rs.20,000/- as advance and delivered possession to the plaintiff. Ex.A2 is another agreement of sale. It was also noticed that there was a specific recital in Exs.A1 and A2 that possession of land was delivered to the vendee. If the agreement of sale coupled with delivery of possession was executed, the document has to be executed on a stamp paper as specified under Article 47-A of Schedule 1-A of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 (for brevity ‘the Act’) and since the penalty was collected under Article 6 instead of Article 47-A of the Act, both the documents were held to be insufficiently stamped documents. It was held by the trial Court that, though, the defendants did not raise objection at the time of marking of the documents, they can raise the objection with regard to admissibility at a later point of time and, accordingly, allowed the application, by an order dated 11.09.2015. Challenging the said order, the present Civil Revision Petition is filed.

7. In view of the above narration of events, facts in the case are not in dispute. The only point that has to be considered in the present petition is whether the defendants, who did not raise objection to the marking of documents by PW.1 in his evidence, can raise an objection with regard to admissibility of documents at a later stage.

8. Admittedly, Exs.A1 and A2 contain the recital with regard to delivery of possession. As observed by the trial Court, the stamp duty and penalty were collected assuming that the documents did not contain a recital with regard to