ORDER

Pendency of a civil suit to declare a registered document before the Civil Court of law is not a bar for registering a complaint under Section 77A of the Registration Act (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act'). The limited scope of Section 77A of the Act cannot be compared with a trial natured adjudication to be undertaken by competent Civil Court of law for the purpose of granting relief to the parties to the Civil Suit. Therefore, the legal position in this regard need not be misconstrued in order to be misinterpreted.

2. A person aggrieved from and out of a registered document is entitled to submit a complaint before the competent authority under Section 77A of the Act, if the document was registered after insertion of Section 77A of the Act. Filing of a complaint will not preclude the aggrieved person from instituting a civil suit to establish his right or to obtain other relief in a civil suit.

3. No doubt, this Court has held that Section 77A cannot have retrospective application so as to cancel the documents registered long before the Tamil Nadu amendment and insertion of Section 77A in the Act.

However, the said retrospective application of Section 77A would not preclude