IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD THURSDAY, THE SEVENTEENTH DAY OF JUNE TWO THOUSAND AND TEN HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD Civil Revision Petition No.1937 of 2008 Between: N. Raghunatha Reddy .. Petitioner AND Smt. Rani and another .. Respondents ORDER: The Civil Revision Petition is directed against the order of the Senior Civil Judge, Punganur, in E.A.NO.59 of 2004 in E.P.No.14 of 2003 dated 16-04-2008. The petition was filed by the 1st respondent herein under Order XXI Rule 97 read with Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure to stop the execution of the sale deed in favour of the revision petitioner herein. During the course of cross-examination of the 1st respondent herein as PW.1, one of the documents sought to be marked as Ex.A.1 was claimed to be a family arrangement dated 25-01-1990. The 1st respondent claimed that no fresh rights were conveyed under the document of family arrangement, which, therefore, does not require either registration or payment of any stamp duty. The revision petitioner objected to the marking of document, firstly contending the document to be defying any known description of a document and secondly, to be a document amounting to a relinquishment deed, which has to be appropriately stamped and compulsorily registered. The objection was that the document cannot be looked into even for a collateral purpose. The Executing Court in the impugned order referred to the various decisions cited by the parties and opined that the contents of the family arrangement deed show that in respect of discharging of honours and dignity of parental family and also to give the properties to be given to the 1st respondent herein, the document was executed and possession was delivered under the same. It was also observed that there was no reference in the document about any interest of the 1st respondent herein in the said property prior to the execution of the document, but still the Executing Court felt that in order to know whether the family settlement is bona fide, voluntary, fair, equitable and final, the document must be permitted to be marked in evidence in the interest of justice subject to the objections of the revision petitioner herein. The Executing Court itself noted that generally, when an objection is raised regarding the stamp duty and penalty, the said objection has to be decided in the first instance and unless such a stamp duty and penalty, if any, is paid, the parties are not entitled to mark the document. However, it felt that on the facts and circumstances of the case, the decision on the nature of the document and the rights conveyed thereunder can be left to be decided at the time of disposal of the main petition itself. Therefore, the Executing Court permitted the document to be marked by PW.1 subject to the objections of the revision petitioner herein, which will be decided at the time of disposal of E.A.No.59 of 2004. The revision petitioner objected to the said order in this revision on the ground that the decision on the admissibility of the document could not have been postponed to a later stage as held by various precedents from this Court and the Apex Court and the Executing Court could not have ignored the recitals of the document and any evidence could not have added to the pleadings already on record in considering the nature of the document. Sri N. Pramod, learned counsel for the revision petitioner and Sri S.V. Bhatt, learned counsel for the 1st respondent are heard. The impugned order, apart from referring to the precedents concerning the interpretation of the nature of the document, had also noted the decision reported in Pola Satish Kumar v. Kapil Chit Funds Pvt. Ltd and others (2007 (6) ALD NOC 88), wherein this Court held that if the objection relates to deficiency of stamp duty of a document, the Court has to decide the objection before proceeding further and if a finding is not recorded by the Court about the objection raised and the document is marked subject to objection, it amounts to committing of an error. The Executing Court also referred to Nookala Krishnaiah (died) and another v. Nookala Dakshina Murthy and others (2007 (6) ALD 781) with reference to the mandate of Section 35 of the Stamp Act, apart from other precedents relating to registerable documents and the consequences of non-registration of a compulsorily registerable document. Still on the facts and circumstances of the case, the Executing Court felt that all objections including the one about the liability to stamp duty and penalty can be left to be decided at the time of disposal of the main petition. How any facts and circumstances of a particular case can enable a subordinate Court to ignore a binding precedent from this Court is unintelligible. In addition to the precedents cited before the Executing Court, Sri N. Pramod, learned counsel for the revision petitioner reinforced the legal position as stated in Pariti Suryakanthamma and another v. Saripalli Srinivasa Rao and another[1]. In view of the absolute prohibition against looking into an unstamped or insufficiently stamped document for any purpose, if the document is required to be stamped, the said objection ought to have been considered and decided by the Executing Court and could not have been postponed. For that reason, the impugned order has to be set aside, but without expressing any opinion on the merits of the objection raised by the revision petitioner against the document, the matter has to be remitted back to the Executing Court for a decision on the objection concerning the liability of the document to stamp duty and penalty before considering any marking of document through PW.1, while the other objections against the document and admission of the document raised by the revision petitioner can also be simultaneously decided by the Executing Court, if it so chooses or otherwise determined at an appropriate stage in accordance with law. Accordingly, the impugned order is set aside and the matter is remitted back to the Court of Senior Civil Judge, Punganur, with a direction to determine the objection relating to the liability of the subject document to stamp duty and penalty in the first instance before considering, marking and admitting the document into evidence through PW.1, while all other objections raised by the revision petitioner against the document can also be either simultaneously determined by the Executing Court on merits in accordance with law or be so determined subsequently at an appropriate stage. The Civil Revision Petition is ordered accordingly without costs. _____________________ G. BHAVANI PRASAD, J Date: 17-06-2010 Ksn [1] 2010 (2) ALT 648