Under the orders of Krishnaswami Nayudu, J., on Application No. 1170 of 1951, the Board of Revenue, Madras, as the Chief Controlling Revenue Authority, submitted a statement of the case under section 57 of the Indian Stamp Act (II of 1899). The question for determination is the liability of the document, executed on 22nd March, 1948, by the Crompton Engineering Co. (Madras), Ltd. (referred to as the borrower) to Best & Co., Ltd. (referred to as the company in the document), to be stamped as a mortgage deed under the provisions of the Indian Stamp Act.

The clauses of that document, dated 22nd March, 1948, relevant for the determination of this question ran:

“Clause 1.-That the whole of the borrower’s floating assets .... and comprising lands, buildings and premises bearing door No. 27, Tiruvottiyur High Road, Madras, together with the electrical installations, plants and machinery, furniture and fittings, office and transport vehicles, loose tools, book debts, imprest cash with employees’ investments, interest accrued on investments, cash on hand and with bankers belonging to the Borrowers and all other stocks and goods of the Borrower whether raw or in process of manufacture and all articles manufactured therefrom which now or hereafter from time to time during the security shall be brought into, stored or be in or about the Borrower’s warehouse, godowns, buildings or premises aforesaid or wherever else the same may be including any such goods in course of transit or delivery, shall be hypothecated to the company and its assigns by way of first charge as continuing security for the payment by the Borrower ....

Clause 9.-That this agreement shall operate as a continuing security for all monies, indebtedness and liabilities aforesaid notwithstanding the existence of a credit balance on the said account at any time or any partial payments or fluctuations of accounts.”

The document dated 22nd March, 1948, was not attested. It was not registered.

“Mortgage deed” is defined for the purposes of the Stamp Act, and for the purposes of that Act only, in section 2(17) of the Act:

“ ‘Mortgage deed’ includes every instrument whereby for the purpose of securing money advanced, or to be advanced, by way of loan or an existing or future debt, or the performance of an engagement, one person transfers, or creates, to, or in favour of, another, a right over or in respect of specified property.”

Of the arguments advanced by Mr. Nambiar for the borrower in support of his contentions, that the document was not a mortgage deed as defined by section 2(17) of the Stamp Act only two need be considered: (1) there was no transfer of right and (2) there was no transfer of right over or in respect of specified property.

The reference to the premises described in the document dated 22nd March, 1948, as bearing door No. 27, Tiruvottiyur High Road is obviously to a “specified” property within the meaning of section 2(17) of the Indian Stamp Act. Even with reference to the stock-in-trade the Secretary to the Commissioner of Salt, Abkari and Separate Revenue Board, Madras v. Mrs. Orr1, should suffice to conclude the question whether it is “specified property” within the meaning of section 2(17) of the Indian Stamp Act. White, C.J., observed at page 649:

“It seems to me that so far as the stock-in-trade, etc., which are described in the deed as trust property are concerned, the trust property is specified.”

Various other items of properties of the borrower were no doubt enumerated in the document dated 22nd March, 1948. But the transaction was one and indivisible, and, the document to evidence that was equally one and indivisible. It is on that basis we have to determine its liability to be stamped under the provisions of the Indian Stamp Act.

Mr. Nambiar was well-founded in his contention, that there could be no transfer of rights over or in respect of the specified premises No. 27, Tiruvottiyur High Road, unless the requirements of section 59 of the Tra