Civil Revision No.5697 of 2002 [ 1 ] IN THE HIGH COURT FOR THE STATES OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH ... Civil Revision No.5697 of 2002 Decided on : July 10, 2009 Ganesh Dutt ... Petitioner VERSUS The State of Haryana and others ... Respondents CORAM : HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE A.N.JINDAL Present: Mr.Jitender Dhanda, Advocate for the petitioner. Ms.Mamta Singhal Talwar, Assistant Advocate General, Haryana. A.N.JINDAL, J.- This revision petition is directed against the order dated 8.8.2002 (Annexure P-1) passed by the Commissioner, Hisar Division, Hisar – respondent No.2, whereby, the appeal filed by the petitioner against the order dated 29.1.2002 (Annexure P-2) passed by Collector, Fatehabad – respondent No.3 was dismissed. Brief facts of the case are that a sale-deed in respect of a plot was executed for a consideration of Rs.82,500/- on 13.8.1998 and subsequent to the sale-deed after a gap of two years, sub-Registrar found the sale-deed undervalued and forwarded the matter to the Collector. The Collector while holding an enquiry, assessed the value of the plot at Civil Revision No.5697 of 2002 [ 2 ] Rs.2,17,600/-. Consequently, stamp duty payable was assessed at Rs.33,728/-. As such, the petitioner – purchaser was ordered to complete the deficiency to the tune of Rs.20,938/- and Rs.276.25 paise on account of registration fee on the sale-deed. The Commissioner dismissed the appeal. Hence, this petition. Heard. On examination of the records, it transpires that the orders passed by the Collector as well as the Commissioner are in violation of Section 47-A of the Indian Stamp Act (herein for short `the Act'). After the reference of the sub-Registrar, the collector should have followed the provisions of sub-Section (2) of Section 47-A of the Act, which reads as under:- “(2) on receipt of reference under sub-section (1), the Collector shall, after giving the parties a reasonable opportunity of being heard and after holding an enquiry in such manner as may be prescribed by the rules made under this Act, determine the value or consideration and the duty as aforesaid and the deficient amount of duty, if any, shall be payable by the person liable to pay the duty.” Counsel for the petitioner contends that he had never been served in the proceedings before respondent No.3 and was proceeded exparte. The afore-quoted provision makes it clear that the Collector – respondent No.3 was to issue a notice as per Rule 4 of the Haryana Stamp (Prevention of Undervaluation of Instruments) Rules, 1978 (herein for short `the Rules') depicting the date and place of hearing, and it was not so done. Civil Revision No.5697 of 2002 [ 3 ] As such, it has violated Section 47-A of the Act and Rule 4 of the Rules. Though, the principle of audi alterm partem was questioned specifically before respondent No.2 in appeal as is apparent from the grounds of appeal (Annexure P-3), but the impugned order (Annexure P-1) shows that it was not dealt with by the Appellate Authority. The order dated 29.1.2002 (Annexure P-2) is based on the sole statement of the `Patwari' and the presumptions and assumptions. No resident of the vicinity, where the plot in question has been situated, was examined to ascertain the exact value of the land. In this regard, reliance has been placed upon the decision of a Division Bench of this Court in case Chamkaur Singh and another vs. The State of Punjab and another, AIR 1991 Punjab & Haryana 26, wherein, while discussing the jurisdiction of the Collector under sub-section (2) of Section 47-A of the Act, it was held as under:- “As per the same, he, on a reference, had to hold an enquiry in such manner as might be prescribed by the rules under the Act for determining the true value or consideration on which the stamp duty had to be paid. This enquiry and determination of the value has essentially to be an independent, fair and quasi- judicial decision of the Collector in the light of the facts established before him. He cannot possibly record any stereotyped or mechanical conclusions in this regard.” The above view was reiterated by the Division Bench of this Court in case Inderjit Singh vs. Punjab State, 1997(Suppl.) Civil Court Cases 607 (P&H). Civil Revision No.5697 of 2002 [ 4 ] The order passed by respondent No.3 does not depict the name/s of any person, who were associated in the enquiry and appears to have been passed in a mechanical manner, without application of judicious mind. It is a well settled law that the market value should be determined on the hypothesis of the price fetched in the bona fide sale by a willing vendor who would agree to sell the lands to a willing vendor of the lands in the surrounding area. Admittedly, the reference was made by the sub-Registrar to the Collector under Section 47-A of the Act, subsequent to the registration of the instrument, which is not permissible in law. Similar controversy arose in case Abhinav Kumar vs. State of Haryana, (Civil Revision No.2455 of 2000), decided on 12.10.2000, wherein, it was observed that there is no provision in the Act whereunder deficient stamp duty can be recovered by the Registration Authority, either from the vendor or from the vendee, subsequent to and after the registration of the sale-deed. No law to contrary has been cited by the respondent – State of Haryana. In view of the above discussion, the present revision petition is allowed; the impugned orders (Annexures P1 and P2) stand quashed. July 10, 2009 ( A.N.JINDAL ) `gian' JUDGE