The sufficiency of property description for registration and the interpretation of refusal to accept a document for registration under the Registration Act.

1. As regards the 2nd defendant who signed the schedule besides executing the principal instrument, there is no question of the insufficiency of the description of the property and, therefore, there is no valid reason for the refusal of the Registrar to register the instrument with its schedule.

2. As regards the 1st defendant the question arises whether the description given in the instrument itself is sufficient description of the property within the meaning of Section 21 of the Registration Act. The description is to be sufficient to identify the property, but as Section 22 of the Registration Act shows, it need not be a description of a local character. It need not mention the street in which the house is or give the name or the superficial area. It follows that the description is not required to be such as to indicate to one searching the register without further enquiry or information the precise property to which the entry relates. It is enough for instance that the property is described as the property bought or inherited from AB, and if this is so, it seems impossible to say that a description of property "as my family property" is not sufficient.

3. We are of opinion that the instrument by itself without the schedule ought to have been registered. Section 76(a) of the Registration Act shows by the cases excepted that cases of refusal to accept are within the meaning of the words refusing to register. We cannot allow the contention that Section 77 of the Registration Act has no application in cases where the Registrar has refused to accept the document for registration.

4. The distinction between refusal to register and refusal to accept is no doubt drawn in the Bombay case, Ganaava v. Sayava (1896) I.L.R. 21 B. 699 but it was not necessary for the point which actually arose under Sections 23 and 24 of the Act.

5. The decree of the learned Judge is reversed and there must be a decree against the two defendants in the terms above indicated. The first defendant must pay all the costs.