ORDER :

Prayer:- Civil Revision Petitions filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, against the order made in O.S.No.385 of 1996, on the file of the District Munsif, Musiri, dated 05.02.2018.

The plaintiff, in O.S.No.385 of 1996 is the revision petitioner. The plaintiff, aggrieved by the order passed by the District Munsif, Musiri, directing the stamping authority to revisit its earlier report and levy penalty under Section 35 of the Indian Stamp Act, has filed the present revision.

2. The case of the plaintiff / revision petitioner is that there was a Family Arrangement dated 31.03.1983 under which the suit property was allotted to the plaintiff / revision petitioner. As the defendants / respondents were interfering with the plaintiff's peaceful possession and enjoyment of the suit property, the plaintiff was constrained to file the suit, seeking the relief of permanent injunction to protect his possession. Pending the suit, the plaintiff sought permission to mark the memorandum of family arrangement dated 31.03.1983. Marking of the said document was objected to by the defendants / respondents on the ground that it was unstamped and unregistered. The trial Court rejected the said document.

3. Aggrieved by the same, the plaintiff filed a revision in C.R.P(MD).No.2062 of 2009, before this Court. On 03.11.2010, this Court disposed of the revision in the manner following:

“19. In this case, the document has been typed on stamp papers of the value of Rs.5/- only. In other words, these are not “duly stamped” in terms of Section 35 of the Indian Stamp Act. Therefore, as per the decision, in A.C.Lakshmipathi, the documents cannot be looked into for any purpose, though it is a family arrangement recording only a past transaction. However, the proviso (a) to Section 35 provides a gateway. It reads as follows:-

35. Instruments not duly stamped inadmissible in evidence, etc.—No instrument chargeable with duty shall be admitted in evidence for any purpose by any person having by law or consent of parties authority to receive evidence, or shall be acted upon, registered or authenticated by any such person or by any public officer, unless such instrument is duly stamped:

Provided that—

(a) any such instrument shall be admitted in evidence on payment of the duty with which the same is chargeable, or, in the case of an instrument insufficiently stamped, of the amount required to make up such duty, together with a penalty of five rupees, or, when ten times the amount of the proper duty or deficient portion thereof exceeds five rupees, of a sum equal to ten times such duty or portion;

It is up to the petitioner to take advantage of the said proviso. Though the same would not cure the defect of non registration, it would cure the defect of deficit stamp duty. Once this is done, the documents can be looked into at least for collateral purposes, as held in clause (VII) of the summing up portion of the decision of the Division Bench in A.C.Lakshmipathy.

20. Therefore, in the light of what is stated above, the order of the Court below, dismissing the application cannot be assailed. Hence, this Civil Revision Petition is dismissed. However, it will be open to the petitioner to take recourse to the remedy indicated as above. ...”

4. Pursuant to the said order in the revision, the Memorandum of Family Arrangement dated 31.03.1983 was sent to the Special Deputy Collector (Stamps) to ascertain the duty payable on the said Family Arrangement. The Special Deputy Collector (Stamps) ascertained the amount payable as Rs.13,500/-. However, the defendants filed an objection stating that while arriving at the amount, the Special Deputy Collector (Stamps) had not ascertained the correct amount and ought to have imposed 10 times penalty in terms of Section 35 of Stamp Act.

5. In view of the said objections taken by the defendants, the trial Court enquired into the matter and in and by an order dated 05.12.2018, found that the Special Deputy Collector (Stamps) had