An unregistered deed of partition excluding necessary parties cannot be admitted in evidence, even if stamp duties are paid, as it contradicts statutory requirements and coparcenership rights.

ORDER:

KIRANMAYEE MANDAVA, J.

1. The Civil Revision Petition is filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India against the order dated 14.02.2020 in O.S.No.151 of 2011 on the file of the III Additional District Judge, Tirupati.

2. Vide the order under Revision, an unregistered deed of declaration of partition deed was received in evidence for collateral purposes. The petitioner herein filed suit against the respondents herein for partition of plaint schedule properties and for separate possession. When the suit was fixed for evidence of the 2^nd defendant, an unregistered deed of declaration of partition dated 25.03.1993 was sought to be marked on behalf of the 2^nd defendant, upon an objection being made by the plaintiff for marking of the same, an application was filed by the defendant to send the document for impounding. The document was sent to the sub-registrar for collection of stamp duty and after collection of the stamp duty the document was sent to the court. The 2^nd defendant filed his chief affidavit. The plaintiff has taken an objection for marking of the subject document, stating that since the subject document is an unregistered document, the same is hit by the provisions of Sections 17 and 49 of The REGISTRATION ACT . The learned Judge, however, by referring to the decisions of this Court and the decision of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, observed that since the stamp duty and penalty were collected by the Registrar, the same is admissible in evidence for collateral purpose.

3. Assailing the same present Revision Petition is filed.

4. Heard Sri T.Sreedhar, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri K.S.Gopala Krishnan, learned counsel for the respondent.

5. The learned Counsel for the petitioner would contend that having regard to the provisions of Section 35 of The Indian STAMP ACT , 1899 and Section 17 of The REGISTRATION ACT , 1908 the unregistered deed of declaration of partition is not admissible in evidence.

6. It is stated that the petitioner, the 1^st to 4^th respondents, and one Late M.K.Rama Murthy and 8^th to 10^th respondents are the children and legal heirs of late M.N.M Krishnaswamy Mudaliar and they constitute a joint family.

7. The petitioner contends that late M.N.Munuswamy Mudaliar, the petitioner’s grandfather had acquired certain properties and also established business concerns. After his demise, the same were managed by the petitioner’s father and her brothers. From out of the joint family funds, properties were acquired. It is contended that as per the provisions of Section 6 of The Hindu SUCCESSION ACT , 1956, the plaintiff, by birth, becomes the coparcener of the joint Hindu family, and she will have the same coparcenary rights in the coparcenary property as the other male coparceners would have had in the property. It is contended that since the properties are ancestral and were acquired by utilising the funds of the joint family, the petitioner/plaintiff and the 8^th to 10^th defendants have equal rights in the plaint schedule properties. It is further contended that since the brothers and sisters did not accede to her request to partition the plaint schedule properties by metes and bounds into equal shares, she had filed the subject suit seeking partition of the properties.

8. The learned counsel for the petitioner, further contends that to defeat the rights of the petitioner/plaintiff, the defendants have sought to mark an unregistered document to be received in evidence. On an objection raised by the petiti