ORDER

By way of this petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, the defendants/petitioners seek to challenge the order dated 28.06.2014 on I.A.No.VIII filed under Order XIII Rules 3 and 4 r/w Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure in O.S.No.87/2011, as passed by the Civil Judge, Deodurga, whereby the Trial Court dismissed the application moved by the defendants/petitioners to decide on the admissibility of the document in question while permitting them to pay duty and penalty thereupon.

The plaintiff/respondent has filed the suit aforesaid seeking the relief of perpetual injunction restraining the defendants or any other person claiming through them from interfering with his peaceful possession over the plaint schedule property. The plaintiff has contended that the plaint schedule property is his ancestral property and the defendants had started interfering with his possession and had also extended the threats of dispossession.

The defendants have filed their written statement denying the plaint averments. It has been stated that the plaint schedule property originally belonged to one Sri. Rangappa son of Piddappa, who sold the same to the father of the defendant No.6 for a sale consideration of Rs.10,000/- through unregistered sale deed dated 25.07.1975 and from that date, all the defendants had been in peaceful possession of the property in question.

During the proceedings in the suit, defendants filed the application-I.A.No.VIII seeking permission to pay the deficit stamp duty and penalty on the unregistered sale deed dated

25.07.1975 sought to be relied upon by them.

The plaintiff filed his objections and contended that production of unregistered document was not permissible in law; and if the document was insufficiently stamped, the same was required to be produced before the Commissioner of Stamps for making up deficiency of stamp duty.

The Trial Court dismissed the said application filed by the petitioners while observing as under:

“8…Admittedly the said document can not be used the defendants for title purpose, but said document maybe used as a co-lateral purpose. But on perusal of alleged document which is 1/4th portion was cutting in the said document therefore now it is not full portion of document, the date of execution and some other recitals are not available for seen the document. Such document can not be acceptable as a document in the court of law. If any document produced by the party, firstly which is in the full form and readable one, but the alleged document can not be readable in a full form. The 1/4th portion of the document was damaged. Therefore this court has come to conclusion that such type of document can not be permitted in the evidence….”

Learned counsel for the defendants/petitioners submits that though the document sought to be relied upon by the defendants is an unregistered one, the same could be marked in evidence by directing payment of penalty as prescribed under law. Learned counsel relied on a decision of this Court in the case of Dr. S.M.Suresh v. G.P. Vamana Rao : ILR 2005 KAR 904, wherein it is observed as under:

“6. The order of the trial Court in not permitting the plaintiff to pay the duty and penalty is illegal. It is within the jurisdiction of the Civil Court to collect the duty and penalty in respect of insufficiently stamped document when produced in evidence. Therefore it is necessary that the trial Court should have accepted payment of the duty and penalty.”

Per contra, learned counsel for the respondent has duly supported the order impugned and submitted that the document in question is neither complete nor legible nor registered and hence, cannot be produced in evidence and cannot be relied for the purpose of determination of any question involved in the matter; and, therefore, the Trial Court has rightly rejected the prayer of the petitioners.

Having heard learned counsel for the parties and having perused the material placed on record, this Court is clearly of th