The main legal point established in the judgment is that the admissibility and evidentiary value of unregistered family arrangement documents should be decided at the final stage of the trial, in accordance with the provisions of the Indian Stamp Act and Indian Registration Act, and relevant legal principles.

This revision petition is directed against the Order dated 112. 2008 in O.S.No.159/2000 whereby and whereunder, the document produced by the revision petitioners dated 05.08.1993 was rejected as inadmissible in evidence.

2.The suit was preferred by the first Respondent against the revision petitioner and respondents 2 to 5 praying for a Judgment and Decree of partition to divide the property into three shares and to allot one such share to him. The said suit was contested by the revision petitioners by filing Written Statement.

.3. Subsequently, the matter was taken up for trial. After the closure of the evidence on the side of the plaintiff, it was the turn for the Defendants to adduce evidence. While DW-1 was in the midst of chief examination, a document dated 05.08.1993 was attempted to be marked as an exhibit. Since the said document was not sufficiently stamped and as it was not registered, the admissibility of the said document was put in issue.

4. The learned Trial Judge found that the document dated 05.08.1993 was shown as a sworn affidavit. However, the document was executed by the Defendants 4 to 6 in the suit in favour of the plaintiff and Defendants 1 and 2. The executor of the document was none other than the wife of the late Krishtappa Naicker and her two daugthers. Since the beneficiary of the document are the sons of Krishtappa Naicker through his first wife Rajammal, the parties are family members. The executants of the document on receipt of a sum of Rs.20,000/- by cash and Rs.50,000/-by cheque, released their right in respect of the property left by late Krishtappa Naicker. The learned Trial Judge was of the view that the document was a family arrangement. According to him, the family arrangement could never be made orally and it should be only by way of a registered document. The value of the property involved in the document was more than Rs.100/-and as such, in the absence of registration, the document was inadmissible in evidence. The learned Trial Judge also found that the value of the transaction in the document was Rs.70,000/-. However, the document was engrossed only in a stamp paper of Rs.15/- and as such, the stamp duty was also insufficient. In such circumstances, the learned Trial Judge concluded that the document dated 05.08.1993 was a family arrangement and it requires to be stamped under Article 45 Schedule I of the Indian Stamp Act. Since it was not made in stamp papers of the appropriate value and as it was not registered, the learned Trial Judge held that the document cannot be looked into for any purpose and as such, it was inadmissible in evidence. It is the said Order which is impugned in the revision petition at the instance of the Defendants 1 and 2 in O.S.No.159/2000.

5. The learned Counsel for the revision petitioner contended that the document in question was only an affidavit recording the transaction and it cannot be treated as a document requiring registration. According to the learned Counsel, the question of admissibility and the evidentiary value has to be decided only at the time of deciding the matter and it was too premature to decide the admissibility during the time of marking the document.

6. The issue of admissibility and the evidentiary value of the document was considered by the learned Trial Judge during the time of examination of DW-1 and at the time of marking the said document as an exhibit. It is true that the document as a whole has to be considered for the purpose of deciding the nature of the document. Mere nomenclature is not the deciding factor for determining the true nature of a document. Court has to look into the entire text of the document and must come to a definite finding about the admissibility of an unregistered family arrangement.

7. The learned Counsel appearing for the petitioner also contended that the admissibility of the documents as well as its evidentiary value has to be decided by the trial Court only at the time of decidin