IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD TUESDAY, THE NINETEENTH DAY OF JULY TWO THOUSAND AND ELEVEN PRESENT THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE VILAS V. AFZULPURKAR CIVIL REVISION PETITION No.985 OF 2008 BETWEEN The District Registrar and Collector of Assurances, Rajahmundry and two others. …PETITIONERS AND Danthuluru Si Venakta Satya Surya Seetharamachandra Raju. …RESPONDENT Counsel for the Petitioners: GP FOR ARBITRATION Counsel for the Respondent: --NONE APPEARED-- The Court made the following: ORDER: This revision arises out of the proceedings taken by the Sub-Registrar, Amalapuram, under Section 47-A of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899. 2. The facts of the case show that the respondent/claimant executed a sale deed bearing a date as 31.03.1995 but it was presented for registration on 24.07.1995. At the time of presentation it was given pending document No.P89/95 and believing that the said document is undervalued, a reference was made by the Sub-Registrar to the District Registrar (Collector under the Stamp Act), Rajahmundry. It appears that the said reference was delayed and made only on 20.01.2002 and thereafter; the District Registrar gave show cause notice dated 19.02.2002 to the respondent herein and passed final order after considering claimant’s representation. The said final order dated 03.05.2002 held that the document was undervalued and stamp duty paid was deficient and called upon the respondent to pay the deficit stamp duty and penalty. Questioning the said order, the respondent herein preferred CMA.No.10 of 2002 before the Senior Civil Judge, Amalapuram, which has since been allowed under the impugned order dated 25.10.2005. The said order of the lower appellate Court is questioned by the petitioner in this revision petition. 3. The respondent though served, has not chosen to appear either in person or through a counsel. Heard the learned Government Pleader for the petitioner. 4. The order of the District Registrar dated 03.05.2002 shows that the document was allegedly undervalued to evade the stamp duty and there appears to be a doubt with respect to the stamp paper on which it is engrossed, as according to the learned Government Pleader the stamp paper itself was fake and therefore, the document is treated as if executed on a white paper and the required stamp duty and penalty was demanded. 5. The lower appellate Court while considering the appeal, however, has gone hyper-technical in scrutinizing the reference made by the Sub-Registrar to the District Registrar. The entire reference, which was made, was not before the lower appellate Court but only the show cause notice – Ex.B3, which was filed before the lower appellate Court, is relied upon by the lower appellate Court to find that the reference made is not in conformity with Form No.II under the AP Stamp (Prevention of Undervaluation) Rules. 6. I am unable to find any material to support the said finding and even otherwise the Sub-Registrar has only made a reference under Section 47- A(1) of the Indian Stamp Act and the substantive part of the adjudication is by the District Registrar i.e. (Collector under the Act). I am unable to see how a reference can be said to be defective on any ground even assuming that Form No.II of the Stamp Rules is not followed by the Sub-Registrar. Similarly, the other ground relied upon by the lower appellate Court is that under Rule 6 of the Stamp Rules there must be a provisional order of determining the market value and that was absent in the present case. It is on that ground also that the lower appellate court has proceeded to allow the appeal. Even this ground is clearly unsustainable as the show cause notice itself contains adjudication as to the provisional amount of the stamp duty and penalty leviable provisionally on the respondent. I am unable to see any defect in the show cause notice on that ground. The third aspect, which by far is more serious, is that the contention of the learned Government Pleader that the stamp paper is fake and the sale deed was antedated having been noticed in para 12 of the order, the lower appellate Court did not give much credence to the said aspect on the ground that there is no evidence of the departmental action taken against the scribe or the stamp vendor or the appellant. 7. The lower appellate Court has also proceeded to consider that the reference in this case, which was made after considerable delay, is vitiated on that ground and it refers to a judgment of this Court in K. NARAYANA REDDY v. DISTRICT REVENUE OFFICER[1] 8. The above case, as would be evident from para 2 of the judgment, relates to a case where sale deed was not only registered by the registering authority but the document was released in favour of the claimant after registering the document. Thus, the registered sale deed dated 27.09.1984 was already released and the notice was sent to the claimant in 1989 demanding deficit stamp duty on the ground that the duty was short levied. In my opinion, the case of that nature would clearly fall under Section 41-A of the Stamp Act, which applies in different circumstance than the case on hand where a pending document is not registered, due to undervaluation of the document under Section 47-A of the Registration Act. Perhaps, Section 41-A of the Stamp Act was not brought to the notice of this court in the decision cited above; as well as the five years time prescribed under Section 41-A of the Stamp Act. 9. The impugned order, therefore, suffers from more than one error and is totally unsustainable and accordingly, it is set aside. The appeal being CMA.No.10 of 2002 shall stand relegated to the Court of Senior Civil Judge, Amalapuram for fresh disposal in accordance with law after giving notice to both sides. The civil revision petition is accordingly allowed. There shall be no order as to costs. _____________________ VILAS V. AFZULPURKAR, J July 19, 2011 DSK [1] 1998 (2) ALT 641