Horwill, J.-We are here concerned with a reference made by the Board of Revenue under section 57 of the Indian Stamp Act II of 1899 on a question of the stamp duty payable on a settlement deed.

It is conceded that the document contains terms which make it a settlement deed and that for purposes of stamp duty it should be treated as such. Under Article 58 of the Stamp Act (Schedule I) the duty is to be the same as for a bond for a sum equal to the amount or “value of the property settled as set forth in such settlement.” The real value of the property is admitted by the settlor to be Rs. 2 lakhs; and since it is subject to a mortgage of one lakh of rupees, the value of the equity of redemption would be at least one lakh of rupees. The revenue authorities value it at Rs. 1,59,300. The settlor did not in so many terms purport to give the real value of the property; because if he gave a false value, he would be liable to prosecution. So he tried to guard himself by saying, “Value for purposes of stamp and registration, Rs. 3,000”. He argued before the Revenue authorities, as he did here, that he was entitled to put any notional value on the property. Since however it was clear from the document itself that the property was worth a great deal more than Rs. 3,000, the matter was referred by the Registrar to the Collector and by the Collector to the Board of Revenue, which body, we are told, directed that the instrument should be registered and that proceedings should be taken against the settlor. The Board of Revenue thereupon referred to this Court the question as to,

“the effect of section 27 on the words ‘value of the property as set forth in the settlement’ occurring in Article 58, Schedule I, of the Stamp Act, as the term ‘value’ may be interpreted in different ways, namely, (1) the market value at the time of execution, (2) the value to the executant when he acquired it, i.e., purchase price, and (3) a nominal or fictitious value.”

Value, unless the term in any enactment suggests the contrary, must of course mean the real value, the real value of property of the nature of land and houses being ordinarily and most suitably estimated by determining what that property would fetch if sold in the open market. In other words, “value” ordinarily means “market value”. There are certain provisions in the Court-fees Act and elsewhere which provide some special methods for calculating the value in certain cases, and so by way of contrast, the expression ‘market value’ is used where the value is not to be calculated in a special way; but the expression “market value” is not found anywhere in the Stamp Act. We find only the expression “value”, and so we must take it that the term “value” means market value. Nominal value means, value only in name and not in fact. The expression “fictitious value” shows that the value given is not the value. If, as here contended, persons who convey property could value it as they pleased; the Act would be purposeless; for little or no revenue would ever be collected. The value of the property when an executant acquired it cannot be the relevant value which must mean the value at the time when the document is executed.

No machinery is set up in the Stamp Act for ascertaining the true value of the property or consideration, as the case may be, in every case that comes before the Registrar; and it would clearly be impracticable to cast the burden on the Registrar in each case to ascertain what the true market value is. If the stamp duty were payable only on a market value to be ascertained, then it would have to be definitely stated in the Act who was to ascertain the market value and what rights, if any, an aggrieved party had by way of appeal, revision, or the like.

Even if the matter were res Integra, we should have no hesitation in holding from an examination of the wording used in the various Articles of the Indian Stamp Act that the Stamp fee had to be collected on the value shown in the document itself. The

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