State Legislature has the competence under the Constitution to impose conditions for filing appeals in stamp duty cases.

1. The constitutional validity of proviso to sub-section (2) of S.47 - A of the Indian Stamp Act , as amended by A.P. Act 8 of 1998 (for short 'the Act') is challenged in this writ petition.

2. The facts, as stated by the petitioner, are that he purchased immovable property situated within the territorial limits of Sub- Registrar, Chikkadpally and presented the sale deed duly executed by the vendor, for registration before the 3rd respondent on 12-12-1997. The 3rd respondent refused to register the document on the ground that the stamp duty on the document should have been paid, calculated on the basis of the market value of the property at the rate of Rs. 9,000/- per square yard and the stamp duty of Rs. 77,600/- paid by the petitioner is not adequate. Feeling aggrieved by the said demand, the petitioner preferred an appeal before the 2nd respondent, who in turn, fixed the stamp duty payable by the petitioner at Rs. 1,74,670/- taking the market value of the property at the rate of Rs.8,500/- per square yard.

3. According to the petitioner, the property purchased by him is only residential in nature, whereas the valuation adopted by respondents 2 and 3 is the one for commercial areas. Challenging the order passed by the 2nd respondent, the petitioner presented an appeal before the Court of the Chief Judge, City Civil Courts, Hyderabad, which is AS(SR), 12045/99 on 25-8-1999. This appeal was returned by the Court for compliance with the proviso to sub-section (2) which requires deposit of the difference of amount of stamp duty as a condition precedent for entertaining the appeal. The petitioner contends that proviso to sub-section (2) in so far as it requires the deposit of the difference of amount of stamp duty, is unconstitutional and is liable to be set aside.

4. The respondents filed a counter - affidavit contending inter alia that the facts as such are not in dispute, that the controversy is only as regards interpretation of the provisions of the Act as well as their constitutional validity, that the impugned provision is within the legislative competence of the State legislature and that it does not suffer from any vice of arbitrariness.

5. Sri M. V. Raja Ram, the learned Counsel for the petitioner raised two contentions in support of his plea that proviso to sub-section (2) of S.47 - A of the Act is unconstitutional. The first contention is that the State Legislature lacked legislative competence to enact the amendment Act 8 of 1998 and, at any rate, the impugned provision was not within the scope and ambit of the limited power of the State Legislature vis - a - vis the Indian Stamp Act . His 2nd contention is that even assuming that the State Legislature had the competence to enact the provision the proviso is violative of Art.14 of the Constitution of India, in so far as it imposes an onerous condition and renders the remedy of appeal a nugatory one.

6. The learned Government Pleader Sri Raj Gopal, on the other hand, submits that the subject relating to levy of stamp duty being an entry in the Concurrent List, the State Legislature has the competence to legislate the same and that Act 8 of 1998 has also received the assent of the President. He further submits that the impugned proviso is not violative of Art.14 of the Constitution of India as similar provisions in various enactments have been upheld by the Hon'ble Supreme Court.

7. As regards the 1st contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner, it may be seen that the subject relating to stamp duty occurs at Entry 44 in List 3 of the VII Schedule to the Constitution. The rates of stamp duty are provided in Entry 63 of List 2. The