Documents not duly stamped are inadmissible unless the requisite duty is paid, and objections must be raised at the appropriate stage to be considered.

JUDGMENT

1. This writ petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India has been preferred claiming the following reliefs:

"(A) That the order dated 28.01.2015 (Annexure-6) passed by Additional District Judge No.l, Barmer in Civil Original Suit No. 30/2007 Guman Singh & Anr. Vs. Hema Ram & Anr. may kindly be quashed and set aside.

(B) That the order dated 22.01.2016 (Annexure-9) passed by Additional District Judge No.l, Barmer in Civil Original Suit No. 30/2007 Guman Singh & Anr. Vs. Hema Ram & Anr. may kindly be quashed and set aside.

(C) That the agreement dated 20.08.1997 (Annexure-1) may kindly be declared as inadmissible in evidence and the exhibition of document may be deleted.

(D) That any appropriate order or direction which this Hon'ble Court may deem just and proper in the facts and circumstances of the present case may kindly be passed in favour of the petitioners.

2. The chronology of the litigation at hand, as noticed by this Court, is that the plaintiffs/respondents filed a suit for possession and perpetual injunction against the petitioners/defendants before the learned Additional District Judge, Barmer on 23.04.2007. The petitioners/defendants filed the written statement to the said civil suit on 17.09.2007. The respondents/plaintiffs have filed rejoinder to the written statement on 03.05.2008. The respondents/plaintiffs thereafter submitted their affidavits for evidence on 22.05.2009. Thereafter, the cross-examination of PW-2 Guman Singh was started on 22.08.2015, but the same was kept reserved; the cross-examination though was re-commenced on 14.10.2015, but could not be completed on that date.

3. The present contention before this Court is an application dated 23.11.2015 filed by the petitioners/defendants under Order 13 Rule 3 CPC praying that the unregistered and unstamped agreement dated 20.08.1997 may be declared inadmissible in evidence, as it was not stamped. The respondents/ plaintiffs filed a reply to the said application on 24.11.2015. The application thereafter was rejected by the impugned order dated 22.01.2016 passed by the learned trial court.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioners/defendants submits that it is a settled law that an unregistered and unstamped agreement, which is dated 20.08.1997 in the present case, could not have been admitted by the learned court below, while postponing the application of judicial mind, regarding its registration, to the final hearing.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioners/defendants relied upon the precedent law laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Ram Rattan (dead) by legal representatives Vs. Bajrang Lal and others, reported in AIR 1978 SC 1393, relevant portion of which reads as under:-

"6. When the document was tendered in evidence by the plaintiff while in witness box, objection having been raised by the defendants that the document was inadmissible in evidence as it was not duly stamped and for want of registration, it was obligatory upon the learned trial Judge to apply his mind to the objection raised and to decide the objects in accordance with law. Tendency sometimes is to postpone the decision to avoid interruption in the process of recording evidence and, therefore, a very convenient device is resorted to, of marking the document in evidence subject to objection. This, however would not mean that the objection as to admissibiiity on the ground that the instrument is not duly stamped is judicially decided; it is merely postponed. In such a situation at a later stage before the suit is finally disposed of it would none-the-less be obligatory upon the court to decide the objection. If after applying mind to the rival contentions the trial court admits a document in evidence, Section 36 of the Stamp Act would come into play and such admission cannot be called in question at any stage of the same suit or proceeding on the ground that the instrument has not been duly stamped. The court, and of necessity it would be trial court before which th