ORDER

1. The petitioner has filed the present petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India being aggrieve by the order dated 31.3.2022, whereby V District Judge, Ambedkar Nagar, Indore has directed the petitioner to deposit Rs.26,99,400/- as an amount of deficit stamp duty with penalty payable on three sale agreements.

2. Facts of the case in short are as under:-

2.1. The petitioner has filed a suit for specific performance of contract and permanent injunction valued at Rs.12,85,26,000/- against late Ramvilas Shukla who died during pendency of the suit. According to the plaintiff, he entered into an agreement to sale with late Ramvilas Shukla for the land mentioned in paragraph – 1 of the plaint. The descriptions of advance payment to late Ramvilas Shukla are given in paragraph – 4 of the plaint. According to him, only Rs.7,70,00,000/- remained for payment for which he was ready to pay. The plaintiff paid Rs.1,50,000/- as fixed court fee. An agreement to sale was executed on 25.10.2011, thereafter, two more supplementary agreements were executed at the time of part payment to late Ramvilas Shukla. All the three agreements were neither investigated nor adequately stamped.

2.2. The defendants filed an application under section 17, 49 of the M.P. Registration Act & Section 33 of the Indian Stamp Act which came up for consideration on 13.12.2018. After hearing the plaintiff 's objection, the learned District Judge held that agreements dated 25.10.2011 and 6.8.2012 and 9.12.2011 are insufficiently stamped, therefore, 1% interest is liable to be paid and directed the plaintiff to get these impounded.

2.3. The plaintiff did not challenge the aforesaid order and filed an application under section 35 of the Indian Stamp Act on 21.1.2019 stating that he is ready to deposit amount of the Rs.7,70,000/- which is 1% of Rs.7,70,00,000/-. In paragraph – 2 of the application, he has admitted that as per the recent amendment in section 35 of the Indian Stamp Act, equal amount of penalty is liable to be imposed of the deficit stamp duty for which the order is liable to be passed by the concerned Court. The learned Court vide order dated 31.3.2022 has held that the deficit stamp duty is Rs.13,49,700/- and equal amount of penalty is liable to be deposited and directed the plaintiff to deposit Rs.26,99,400/- by way of challan in 0030 stamp and registration head of the treasury and after deposit of receipt, all the three agreements shall be admissible in the evidence.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the learned Court has committed jurisdictional error while ascertaining the amount of the stamp duty and penalty under the provisions of the stamp Act in view of the judgment passed by this Court in the case of Bhagwati Prasad v. Mathura Devi reported in 2012 (3) M.P.L.J. 170 in which it has been held that the Court has to send the document to the Collector to deal with the document in the manner prescribed under section 40 of the Indian Stamp Act, therefore, impugned order be set aside and the learned trial Court be directed to send all the three agreements to the Collector, Stamp for deciding the stamp duty as well as penalty.

4. Learned counsel for the respondents oppose the aforesaid prayer by submitting that the petitioner / plaintiff himself filed an application before the Court for depositing of the deficit stamp duty. The plaintiff has wrongly calculated the value of the instrument Rs.7,70,00,000/- and trying to deposit the less amount of stamp duty i.e. Rs.7,70,000/-. The stamp duty is liable to be paid on the sale consideration of the property mentioned in the agreement and not on the balance amount payable by the prospective purchaser at the time of registration in the sale deed. In view of the recent amendment in sections 35 & 40 of the Indian Stamp Act, only 2% duty is liable to be imposed, therefore, there is no question of any adjudication by the Collector of Stamp. Hence, the judgment relied by the petitioner is not