The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Friday entitled a petitioner to a cost of ₹ 10,000 to be recovered from the salary of a Sub-Registrar, who had illegally levied a charge on his property.
Justice G. R. Swaminathan directed the Sub-Registrar to delete the charge created in respect of the petitioner’s property.
The petitioner, J. Mathan, had sought deletion of the charge on the property levied by Sub-Registrar, Pudukkotai, be deleted. The petitioner said when he applied for encumbrance certificate for the property purchased by him, he realised that a charge of ₹ 95,372 had been levied towards deficit stamp duty. He contended that no proceedings under Section 47 (A) of the Stamp Act had been initiated in this regard.
Counsel for the petitioner argued that only if an order directing the purchaser to pay deficit stamp duty was made, a charge could be created and hence the one created by the Sub-Registrar was illegal.
