1. It has been the practice in the Registrars office to require the parties to pay the stamp duty leviable upon a partition under the Stamp Act. 1899, schedule I, Article 45 before the issue of the final decree in a partition suit, on the ground that the decree is a final order for effecting a partition passed by a Civil Court within the meaning of Section 2 (15) of the Act, which defines an "instrument of partition."

2. The learned vakil for the plaintiff has argued that the duty is not chargeable upon the decree in this case, since it is not a final order within this definition, and that final order means an order made in execution delivering to the parties the shares which have been determined by the decree of the Court.

3. To make an order chirgeabla under the section it must effect an actual division of the property and therefore an order declaring the rights of the parties and directing further proceedings for the ascertainment of the specific portion to be taken by each party, or for the demarcation of a share of immoveabla property by metes and bounds, will not fall within the section. The Courts have sometimes passed such interim orders and directed further proceeding t