THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE V.V.S.RAO WRIT PETITION No.12470 of 2002 DATED: 14.09.2009 Between: G.Anand Kumar. …Petitioner and The State of Andhra Pradesh, Rep.by its Principal Secretary To the Revenue (Registration-II) Department, Secretariat Buildings, Hyderabad, And another. …Respondents. THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE V.V.S.RAO WRIT PETITION No.12470 of 2002 ORDER: The petitioner is a practicing Advocate at Visakhapatnam. He applied for licence to be appointed for notary under the Notaries Act, 1952 (the Act, for brevity). As contemplated under the provisions of the Act and the Notaries Rules, 1956 (the Rules, for brevity), the second respondent processed the application. In furtherance thereof, the first respondent issued memo No.450/R&M-1/2001-1, dated 27.04.2001, and appointed the petitioner as notary. Thereafter, by letter No.2/15457/2000, dated 30.05.2001, the second respondent informed the petitioner to credit a sum of Rs.1,000/- to the Government for issuing necessary licence. The petitioner complied with the same. In the meanwhile, the Central Government amended the Rules inserting sub rule (4A) to Rule 8 of the Rules prohibiting appointment of notaries in a State in excess of the number specified in the Schedule to the Rules. In view of this, the second respondent did not grant necessary licence. Feeling aggrieved, the petitioner file the instant writ petition seeking a writ of mandamus declaring the action of the respondents in not issuing certificate of practice of notary to the petitioner, as illegal, arbitrary and for a consequential direction. The Deputy Inspector General (Law) in the Office of the second respondent filed a counter affidavit. Referring to Rule 8(4A) of the Rules, the counter affidavit has taken a stand that in view of the amendment and also in view of the fact that the State Government has already appointed 1256 notaries falling in excess of number prescribed in the Schedule, further appointments are barred. A reference is made to memo No.39885/R&M/1/2001/1, Rev.(R&M) Department, dated 01.12.2001, whereunder the Government allegedly rejected the appointment of the petitioner. The matter was initially heard by this Court on 08.09.2009. The learned Counsel for the petitioner relied on Parchuri Kishore v Government of Andhra Pradesh[1] and S.Venkatesham v Government of Andhra Pradesh [2], in support of the contention that the appointments made by the Government prior to coming into force of the amendment with effect from 10.05.2001 are not barred by the amendment, and therefore, the certificate of practice cannot be refused. The learned Assistant Government Pleader submits that in view of the amendment and also in view of the rejection order passed by the Government such certificate cannot be granted to the petitioner. He relied on A.Sambi Reddy v Government of Andhra Pradesh[3]. In view of the counter averment that the Government rejected the appointment vide memo dated 01.12.2001, this Court directed the learned Assistant Government Pleader to produce the relevant file before this Court. The file from the Office of the second respondent was produced on 09.09.2009, but no such copy is found in the file. It is ununderstandable as to how an Officer of the rank of Deputy Inspector General (Law) working in the Office of the second respondent can make an averment in the counter affidavit even though such memo of the Government is not found in the file. Be that as it is, the learned Assistant Government Pleader was again given time to produce file from the Government. Today, the file is not produced and further time is sought. As the matter is pending since 2002 this Court is not inclined to grant further time to learned Assistant Government Pleader to produce the file. Rule 8(4A) of the Rules inserted vide G.S.R.330(E), dated 09.05.2001, came into effect with effect from 10.05.2001. Sub rule (4A) of Rule 8 of the Rules is to the effect that “appropriate Government may on and after the ninth day of May 2001, appoint notaries in a State or Union Territory…not exceeding the number of the notaries specified in the schedule”. Schedule was also appended to the Rules by the said amendment. For the State of Andhra Pradesh, the maximum number of notaries to be appointed by the Central Government is 575 and the maximum notaries to be appointed by the State Government of Andhra Pradesh stands at 863. The bar of appointing notaries in excess of this number, however, will come into effect only after 09.05.2001. In Parchuri Kishore (supra) applying this principle this Court allowed the writ petition of a Lawyer whose application was processed and was allowed by the Government on 05.07.2001, but the Commissioner and Inspector General of Stamps and Registration refused to give certificate of practice. This Court issued a mandamus to issue such certificate observing that the amendment introduced by the Second Amendment Rules has not application. The relevant observations therein are as follows. The Second Amendment Rules were notified on 9-5-2001. Precisely, it is for this reason that Rule 8(4A) of lays down that the appropriate Government may on or after the ninth day of May, 2001 appoint Notaries in a State or Union Territory as the case may be, not exceeding the number of Notaries specified in the schedule. In the present case, the petitioner made an application for being appointed as Notary on 16-12- 2000. After complying the necessary formalities and as recommended by the second respondent, the Government by their memo dated 5-7-2001 allowed the application of the petitioner for appointment as Notary. What remains is, issue of Certificate of Practice as required under Rule 8(4), which reads as under: Where the application is allowed, the appropriate Government shall appoint the applicant as a Notary and direct his name to be entered in the Register of Notaries maintained by that Government under Section 4 of the Act and issue him a certificate on payment of prescribed fees authorizing him to practice in the area to which the application relates or in such part thereof as the appropriate Government may specify in the certificate as a Notary for a period of three years from the date on which the certificate is issued to him. Rule 8(4) has not been amended. Therefore, in case of all appointments made by the Government before 9-5-2001 the amendment has no application. The learned Government Pleader, however, placed reliance on Memo No.36644/R&M.1/2001-1, dated 13.11.2001 to impress upon the Court that the Government directed the second respondent to return the fee collected from the applicants and not to send any proposals to the Government for appointment of fresh notaries. The said memo does not help the learned Government Pleader. Having regard to the amendment, the Government decided not to accept any proposals and as such the second respondent was directed to return the fee collected from applicants presumably after 9-7-2001. In S.Venkatesham (supra) this Court was dealing with the case of renewal of certificate of practice issued to a notary and this Court held that the amended Rule 8(4A) of the Rules has no application for renewal and the restriction therein applies to fresh appointments. The decision cited by the learned Assistant Government Pleader in A.Sambi Reddy (supra) has no application because the recommendation made by the Inspector General on 26.06.2001 was accepted by the Government on 10.07.2001 after coming into force of the amended Rule. This Court dismissed the writ petition therein observing that Government could not have issued appointment order to the petitioner appointing him as a notary in the teeth of Rule 4-A as amended by the Second Amendment Rules, 2001. In this case there is no dispute that second respondent sent the proposal very much prior to coming into force of amended Rule and Government issued memo on 27.04.2001. Therefore, what was remained was the formality of collecting the necessary fees and issue certificate of practice. The Second Amendment Rules have no application to the facts of the case. Though the counter affidavit refers to a memo dated 01.12.2001 under which allegedly the appointment was rejected, such copy is not produced before this Court in spite of giving sufficient time. The Writ Petition, for the above reasons, is allowed, and the second respondent is directed to issue certificate of practice to the petitioner subject to the petitioner complying with necessary formalities. There shall be no order as to costs. ____________ (V.V.S.RAO, J) 14.09.2009 vs [1] 2002 (2) ALD 627 [2] 2002 (5) ALD 268 [3] 2002 (3) ALD 424