Registered instrument cannot be withheld by Registering Authority.

A charitable organisation providing food and shelter and rehabilitating the disabled, orphans and destitutes has approached this Court for an order to get the sale deed released and to direct the first respondent to hold an enquiry into the misconduct of the fourth respondent and to take appropriate proceedings in the accordance with law including to award compensation to the petitioner for the inordinate delay in releasing the document.

2. The petitioner is a charitable trust with the objects, inter alia, to educate and rehabilitate the disabled, orphans and destitutes who are lying uncared for on the roadsides in the city of Chennai and its suburbs, to give them food and shelter and to treat them in the nearby hospitals and also to rehabilitate them. The petitioner Trust has been recognized by the Directorate of Rehabilitation of the Disabled, Government of Tamil Nadu and they have been given the benefit under Sec.80-G of the Income Tax Act. According to the petitioner, the Trust is running a Home called “Anbagaam” at No.11, Perianna Mudali Street, Chennai-1. As the said accommodation was inadequate with the number of inmates increasing day-by-day, the petitioner Trust, with the benevolvent contribution from the public, acquired a land of an extent of 1.61 acres in S.Nos.377/1, 378, 380 and 381/2 of No.147, Thirunilai Village, Ponneri Taluk, Thirvallur District for constructing a permanent Home with suitable amenities. The said property was purchased for a consideration of Rs.80,600 and the sale deed in respect thereof was presented for registration before the third respondent on 23.4.2001, who took the document as pending Document No.229 of 2001 after receiving a sum of Rs.910 towards registration fee etc. According to the petitioner, it was represented at that time by the third respondent that the document could be released after side inspection by their officials within about ten days time. However, after repeated requests on several occasions and in view of the urgency and dire need to shift the inmates after construction of a building, the land was inspected on 30.5.2001. Even thereafter the request of the petitioner to release the document to take necessary follow-up to. While similar sales executed in the same village were released on the same day or immediately thereafter, the third respondent, for obvious consideration, was withholding the document presented by the petitioner. The petitioner came to understand that the third respondent has purposely sent an incorrect report to the second respondent in reference to the market value of the land so as to withhold the document. Ultimately, the petitioner's counsel was constrained to issue a lawyer's notice, bringing to the notice of the third respondent the judgment of the Division Bench of this Court, directing the release of the document for reference within three weeks from the date of presentation of the document. The petitioner was therefore left with no other alternative but to move this Court for the above direction.

3. In the affidavit filed in support of the writ petition, the petitioner has specifically stated as follows:

“The happenings at the Sub-Registrar Office are open secret and a honest and genuine person cannot get lawful treatment in the hands of the officials in the Registration Department. In view of such large level indiscipline and severe malpractice, it is also appropriate to hold proper enquiry and to take appropriate steps to abate such malpractice in the interest of public.”

“But, the third respondent, for obvious reasons, had not considered the request of the petitioner as well as the directions of the superior officers.”

“I have also come to know that the third respondent by sheet of his office, is making extraneous benefits to him and acting illegally. In the premises the third respondent has been impleaded in his personal name also as fourth respondent.”

4. The fourth respondent has fixed a counter affidavit stating that the document when