The admissibility of unregistered documents is subject to payment of stamp duty and penalty wherever necessary, and objection to insufficiency in stamp duty cannot be raised at a later stage.

The Civil Revision petition is filed against the order dated 30.11.2007 passed in I.A. No. 333 of 2007 in O.S. No.111 of 2004 filed under Section 151 of C.P.C. seeking permission to mark six documents.

2. The defendants in O.S. No.111 of 2004 are the revision petitioners.

3. The respondents / plaintiff filed O.S. No.111 of 2004 for a permanent injunction restraining the petitioners/ defendants from interfering with his peaceful possession of the suit schedule property. The respondent / plaintiff filed an I.A. No.333 of 2007 for marking six documents. The documents 1 to 3 are unregistered lease deeds; documents 4 & 5 are receipts; document 6 is Money order receipt.

4. The trial court by order dt. 30.11.2007 held that even though documents 1-to 3 are objected as unregistered documents they could be admitted. Documents 4 & 5 are also admissible subject to stamp duty. Thus, the trial court allowed I.A. No.333 of 2007 by holding that stamp duty and penalty is payable on the documents wherever necessary. Aggrieved by the order of the trial court dt.30.11.2007 the above Civil Revision petition has been filed by the defendants under Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

5. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioners and the learned counsel for the respondent. I have also gone through the documents and judgments referred to by them in support of their submissions.

6. The learned counsel for the petitioners has mainly relied on the decision of this court reported in 1998 (1) C.T.C. 286 (Arumughachamy Nadar Vs. Deivanaiammal) in support of his contention. A perusal of the same would reveal that a learned Single Judge of this court held that when a tenant wanted to mark an unregistered mortgage deed to prove his character of possession, this court held that the same could not be marked to prove the character of the possession as a mortgagee.

7. The facts in the above case is totally different from the facts of the present case. Hence, the respondent/plaintiff wants to mark the lease deeds for collateral purpose and not mortgage deed.

8. In 2007(1) T.N.L.J. 481 (Civil) (Shyamal Kumar Roy Vs. Sushil Kumar Agarwal) the Honble Supreme Court held that only when objection was taken with regard to the admissibility of a document which was not duly stamped, such objection would be determined judicially.

9. In the present case, objection was raised only in respect of its non registration, but not with regard to insufficiency in stamp duty. Therefore, the Revision petitioner could not object to the documents insufficient stamp duty at this stage. However, the trial court has correctly held that the documents are admissible subject to payment of stamp duty and penalty wherever necessary.

10. In 2005 (2) C.T.C. 385 (Amudha and others Vs K. Jeyaraman and another) this court held that the document which is neither stamped nor registered cannot be received in evidence. In that case, the court was asked to consider the admissibility of a release deed and therefore the facts in the above case are totally different frorn the facts of the present case.

11. In 2006 (4) M.L.J. 706 (Karuppannan Vs. Thavasiappan and another) I have held that even an unregistered document can be admitted for collateral purpose if the party filing the document is willing to pay the deficit stamp duty and penalty.

12. Therefore, I do not find any illegality nor infirmity in the order of the trial court warranting interference.

13. In the result, the Civil Revision petition is dismissed. No costs. Consequently, M.P. No. 1. of 2008 is also dismissed.