HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE A. GOPAL REDDY CIVIL REVISION PETITION No.1951 OF 2010 DATE:18-06-2010 BETWEEN Garapati Sri Amaranath …Petitioner AND Velugubanti Suryanarayana Murthy …Respondent THIS COURT MADE THE FOLLOWING: HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE A. GOPAL REDDY CIVIL REVISION PETITION No.1951 OF 2010 ORDER: This revision under Article 227 of Constitution of India is directed by the petitioner-plaintiff questioning the correctness of the order of II Additional Senior Civil Judge (Fast Track Court), Rajahmundry, dated 6.2.2010 in O.S.No.692 of 2007 upholding the objection about the marking of letter, dated 20.4.2007 holding it as a bond within the meaning of Section 2(5) of the Indian Stamp Act and consequently, it is chargeable to duty under Article 13, Schedule 1(a) of the Act and that the plaintiff has to pay the necessary stamp duty on the said document being a bond. The document which is sought to be marked by the plaintiff was written on a white paper and discloses that the defendant executed that document in favour of the plaintiff on 20.4.2007 acknowledging that he obtained a loan from the plaintiff and on verifying the accounts he fell in due a sum of Rs.2,87,000/- and it is not possible for him to discharge the loan immediately, and therefore, he is agreeing to discharge the loan within one year with interest at 1.50 ps. per hundred per month and further a requisition was made to grant one more year for discharging the loan. The said document was attested by one witness duly mentioning the name of the scribe. The bond as defined under Section 2(5) of the Indian Stamp Act reads as under: “Section 2(5) of the Act defines "bond" as under: "Bond" includes- (a) any instrument whereby a person obliges himself to pay money to another, on condition that the obligation shall be void if a specified act is performed, or is not performed, as the case maybe; (b) any instrument attested by a witness and not payable to order or bearer, whereby a person obliges himself to pay money to another; and (c) any instrument so attested, whereby a person obliges himself to deliver grain or other agricultural produce to another.” Justice Vivian Bose (as he then was) in NARBADA PRASAD V. MT.SUNKI[1] held that where a document is nothing more than an ordinary receipt or an acknowledgement containing also a promise to pay, it does not fall under Art.1, Sch.1 of Stamp Act, and since it is both an acknowledgment as well as an agreement, it must under Sec. 6(b), be charged with the higher duty i.e., eight annas under Art.5(c) and can be validated under Sec. 35. The Bombay High Court in M/S. PATEL STONE TRADING CO., NAGPUR V. RAMSING[2] held as under: "THE real test to decide as to whether a particular document is a bond or not, is to find out after reading the document as a whole as to whether an obligation is created by the document itself or it is merely an acknowledgment of a pre-existing liability. If there is merely an acknowledgment of pre-existing liability which could have been enforced apart from the document itself or it is merely an acknowledgment of a pre-existing liability. If there is merely an acknowledgment of pre-existing liability which could have been enforced apart from the document itself, then the matter stands on a different footing. But if the document creates an obligation in itself with an express promise for payment of an amount, in my opinion such a document will have to be termed as a bond within the meaning of Section 2 (c) (ii) of the Bombay Stamp Act." (para 4) The Bombay High Court was dealing with Sec. 2(c)(ii) of the Bombay Stamp Act but not Sec.2(b), which is pari materia with Sec. 2(b) of the Act and it is misplaced to the facts of the present case. A Division Bench of this court GOVULA RAMAKISTIAH V. YERRAM YELLAPPA[3] held that the definition of a bond in the Hyderabad Stamp Act clearly shows that a document which is attested by a witness and which is not payable to order or bearer is a bond. The definition of the bond in Hyderabad Stamp Act is pari materia with the definition of the bond under the Indian Stamp Act. Learned counsel for the petitioner placed strong reliance on the decision of the Supreme Court in State of Kerala and Others v. McDowell & Co. Ltd.[4]. In the said case, the Supreme Court while dealing with the definition of ‘bond’ in sub-clause (i) of clause (a) of Section 2 of the Kerala Stamp Act held that if the executant can be sued for that sum of money only upon the strength of the instrument, the instrument is a bond. Hence, the said decision is misplaced to the facts of the case on hand. The definition of bond as mentioned above clearly goes to show that any instrument attested by a witness and not payable to order or bearer, whereby the defendant obliged himself to pay money to another (plaintiff) clearly falls under sub-clause (b) of Sec. 2(5) of the Act. In that view of the matter, the impugned order passed by the lower Court treating the letter as a bond and liable to be paid stamp duty does not suffer from any illegality warranting interference by this Court. The Civil Revision Petition fails and the same is accordingly dismissed. No order as to costs. _______________ A. GOPAL REDDY, J. JUNE 18, 2010 Tsr. [1] AIR 1938 NAGPUR 464 [2] AIR 1975 BOMBAY 79 [3] AIR 1959 AP 653 [4] 1994 Supp (2) SCC 605