IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) WEDNESDAY, THE TWENTIETH DAY OF AUGUST TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION NO : 1772 of 2005 Between: Khaja Hameeduddin, S/o. Khaja Moinuddin, R/o. 3-5-807/1/c, Hyderguda, Hyderabad. ..... PETITIONER AND 1 The Government of A.P., ' rep. by its Secretary, Revenue Dept., Secretariat, Hyderabad. 2 The Sub-Registrar ( Banjara Hills), Erragadda, Hyderabad. ....RESPONDENTS Counsel for the Petitioner:MR M.D.MAHAPATRA FOR MR MR.B.MADHAVA REDDY Counsel for the Respondents: AGP FOR REVENUE The Court made the following : O R D E R: This writ petition is ﬁled for a writ of Mandamus to set aside proceedings dated 02-11-2004 issued by respondent No.2 as illegal and arbitrary. Heard learned counsel for the petitioner, learned Assistant Government Pleader for Revenue and perused the record. The petitioner ﬁled O.S.No.86 of 1989 on the ﬁle of V- Additional Judge, City Civil Court, Hyderabad (renumbered as O.S.No.142 of 1997 after the same was transferred to the Court of XIV-Additional Chief Judge (FTC) City Civil Court, Hyderabad) for speciﬁc performance of agreement of sale dated 03-12- 1985. The said suit was decreed on 22-08-2002. As the defendant therein failed to register the sale deed, the petitioner ﬁled E.P.No.2 of 2002, wherein the Court executed the sale deed and forwarded the same to respondent No.2 for registration. On receipt of the sale deed, respondent No.2 informed the XIV-Additional Chief Judge, City Civil Court, vide his letter dated 02-11-2004 to the eﬀect that the registration of the said document was kept pending as the instrument was found to be undervalued and for payment of deﬁcit stamp duty of Rs.3,90,488/- on the prevailing market value on the date of execution of the document, namely; 19-10-2003. Assailing this order, the petitioner filed this writ petition. In the counter-aﬃdavit ﬁled by respondent No.2, it is stated that the document was undervalued by showing its value as Rs.1,10,000/- as against the prevailing market value of Rs.30,02,500/- and that after keeping the registration pending, and as the petitioner has not paid the deﬁcit stamp duty, he referred the document to the District Collector under Section 47-A of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 (for short “the 1899 Act”) on 25-07- 2005. The learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that Section 47-A of the 1899 Act is not attracted to the present case, in view of ﬁxation of market value by the Special Oﬃcer and Competent Authority, Urban Land Ceiling, Hyderabad vide his proceedings dated 28-03-1984. I have carefully perused the said order passed under Section 21 of the Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976 (for short “the 1976 Act”). The Special Oﬃcer, while allowing the application ﬁled by the owners of the land, namely; Sri P.Jagdish Reddy and others, ﬁxed the land rate in terms of G.O.Ms.No.1196 Revenue (UC-I) Department, dated 07-07-1978. In my opinion, the said rate was ﬁxed in the context of passing an order under Section 21 of the 1976 Act for granting exemption in respect of the land in excess of the ceiling limit. Such a price cannot be adopted straightaway for the purpose of ascertaining the value of the property in the context of registration. Under Section 47-A of the 1899 Act, where the registering oﬃcer has reason to believe that the market value of the property, which is the subject matter of the instrument brought before him for registration, has not been truly set forth in the instrument, or that the value arrived at by him as per the guidelines prepared or caused to be prepared by the Government from time to time has not been adopted by the parties, he may keep pending such instrument and refer the matter to the Collector for determination of market value of such property and proper duty payable thereon. From the averments contained in the counter-aﬃdavit, it is evident that though initially respondent No.2 informed the Civil Court about the deﬁcit stamp duty payable by the petitioner, after ﬁling of the writ petition he referred the matter to the District Collector under Section 47-A of the 1899 Act. In view of this subsequent event, the validity or otherwise of the impugned order need not be adjudicated on merits. As respondent No.2 has the authority to refer the issue relating to correct value of the instrument and stamp duty payable thereon to the District Collector, and he having accordingly referred the same to him, the writ petition is disposed of with the direction to the Collector (District Registrar), Hyderabad to decide the issue referred by respondent No.2 regarding the correct market value of the instrument and the stamp duty payable thereon, within a period of four (4) weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY, J Dated 20th August, 2008 vrn