In absence of payment of necessary stamp duty document should not be marked even for collateral purpose.

Aggrieved over the fair and decretal order dated 21.6.2005 made in I.A. No. 108 of 2005 in O.S. No. 924 of 2004 on the file of the First Additional District Munsif, Bhavani, this civil revision petition is filed.

2. Brief facts of the case are as follows:

The respondents 1 to 3 have filed the said suit claiming for partition and separate posses­sion of 5/12 shares of the suit.

3. Pending suit, the petitioner and defen­dants 4 and 5 have filed an I.A. No. 108 of 2005 to endorse on the document dated 27.8.1981 (Partition Agreement) as an admitted docu­ment in evidence in the suit. The respondents/ plaintiffs opposed the said petition contending that the third defendant in his chief- examina­tion has specifically called the document as Agreement of Partition Settlement and thus it has to be registered with necessary stamp duty.

4. The learned Additional District Munsif, Bhavani, on consideration of the averments and the respective submissions made by the counsel appeared on either side dismissed the Interlocutory Application holding that the document has not been written in proper manner and has also not been properly stamped and therefore it could not be taken into consider­ation even for collateral purpose.

5. The learned counsel appearing for the revision petitioner would contend that the trial Court ought to have gone into the issue regard­ing the nature of the transaction, and its valid­ity thereof at the time of admitting the document, those issues can be decided only af­ter admitting the documents in the evidence. The trial Court failed to note the law laid down by the Honourable Supreme Court in Bipin Shantilal Panchal v. State of Gujarat AIR 2001 SC 11578 : (2001) 3 SCC 1 would squarely apply to the facts of the present case.

6. In Penatapati Nageswara Rao v. Moka Narayanamurthi and Another (1937) 2 MLJ 805, a Division Bench of this Court held that the improperly stamped document could not be used to prove a collateral purpose, namely, the acknowledgement of liability on previous notes.

7. In Ram Rattan v. Parma Nand AIR 1946 PC 51 : (1946) 1 MLJ 295 the Privy Council held that the words `for any purpose' in Sec­tion 35 of the Stamp Act, should be given their natural meaning and effect and would include a collateral purpose. Where an unstamped doc­ument is admitted in proof of some collateral matter, it is certainly admitted in evidence for that purpose which the statute has prohibited. Consequently, an unstamped partition deed cannot be used to corroborate the oral evidence for the purposes of determining even the factum of partition as distinct from its terms.

8. In Jupudi v. Pulavarthi AIR 1971 SC 1070 : (1971) 1 SCC 545 the Hon'ble Supreme Court held that in view of Sections 35 and 36, secondary evidence by way of oral evidence or copy of document insufficiently stamped is not admissible in a suit even though objection to its admissibility cannot be taken under the Evidence Act.

9. In AC. Lakshmipathy and Another v. A.M. Chakrapani Reddiar and 5 Others, 2001 (1) CTC 112 : (2001) 1 MLJ 1 a Division Bench of this Court held that un-stamped doc­uments if required to be stamped but not so stamped cannot be looked into for any purpose including collateral purpose.

10. However, in a judgment of the Apex Court reported in Bonder Singh v. Nihal Singh 2004 (1) LW 706 : (2003) 2 MLJ 122, wherein Their Lordships have held that "Under the law, a sale deed is required to be properly stamped and registered before it can convey title to the vendee. However, legal position is clear law that a document like the sale deed in the pres­ent case, even though not admissible in evi­dence, can be looked into for collateral purposes." The learned counsel also relied on the Division Bench of this Court reported in Venugopal @ Alagarsamy and Others v. Bajanai Alagarsamy and Another (2004) 3 MLJ 362 wherein this Court held that "though unregistered documents are inadmissible in evidence, they may be considered for collat­eral purpose."

11. In