IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ PetitionNo.9535 of 2010 (O&M) Date of decision: 22.11.2011 Kulwinder Singh .....Petitioner versus State of Punjab, through Financial Commissioner (Revenue), Civil Secretariat, Chandigarh, and others. ...Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr.Ashish Gupta, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Navdeep Sukhna, DAG, Punjab. ---- 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? No. 2. To be referred to the reporters or not ? No. 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest ? No. ---- K.Kannan, J. (Oral) 1. The writ petition challenges the order passed under Section 47-A of the Indian Stamp Act requiring the petitioner to pay additional stamp duty on the ground that the property had not been properly valued. The petitioner was a purchaser at a public auction by Improvement Trust and the property had been registered at the rate at which it was auctioned. Previously, proceedings had been initiated under Section 47-A by the PCS Collector, but he chose to drop the proceedings through an order dated 17.02.2006 finding that Civil Writ PetitionNo.9535 of 2010 (O&M) - 2 - the property had been registered only at the value which was sold at the auction and the vendee had not committed any evasion of stamp duty. A decision which had been concluded cannot be reopened again by the very same authority. I will find that the principle of res judicata will still have to be applied to a situation like this. The subsequent proceedings initiated are not appropriate and they are required to be quashed and, accordingly, quashed. 2. The writ petition is allowed. 3. It is stated by the counsel for the petitioner that the document had been impounded. The State is directed to return the document within a period of 4 weeks from the date of this order. (K. KANNAN) JUDGE 22.11.2011 sanjeev