SIDDHARTHA VARMA,J. - (1.) When the petitioner bought the property in question by a sale deed which was executed on 12.3.2015, the matter was referred on 15.4.2015 by the Sub Registrar stating that there was a deficiency in the stamp on the instrument in question. A notice was issued to the petitioner on 2.6.2015 to which he replied on 7.8.2015. Not satisfied with the reply the Assistant Commissioner (Stamps), Sonbhadra on 16.9.2016 found a deficiency of Rs. 15,03,536/- in the stamp duty. He also imposed a penalty of Rs. 50,000/- and also stated that till the final deposit of the deficiency interest at the rate of 1.5% would be chargeable. The petitioner filed an appeal before the Appellate Court and the Appellate Court dismissed the appeal on 29.11.2016. Aggrieved thereof the petitioner has filed the instant writ petition.
(2.) The petitioner has stated that all facts as were required to be disclosed which would have enabled the authorities to conclude as to what was the stamp payable were present in the sale deed. Yet wrongly notice was issued. In the reply the petitioner had emphatically stated that rate as was applicable to land along with the Rewa-Ranchi road was paid by him and this is exactly what was found in the inspection as was done by the Nayab Tehsildar. It was found therein on 23.9.2015 that the petitioner's plot in question was 50 meters away from the National Highway and that it was along side the Rewa-Ranchi National Highway. The report also very categorically stated that it was an agricultural land and was only contiguous to an Abadi land. No where in the report, learned counsel submits had it been stated that the land was an Abadi land. Only on some portion of the land of a co-tenure holder a dilapidated structure with a 'Khaprail' roof of 50 sq.m. was found. The other report definitely nowhere stated that the land was Abadi. The report also stated that the house which was found in the neighbouring plot belonged to one Premchandra Jaiswal who the petitioner states was a cotenure of his vendor and therefore by no stretch of imagination, the land could be said was situate in an Abadi. Furthermore, when the petitioner enquired under the Right to Information Act as to whether the plot in question was situate in a Bhumidhari land or was it in an Abadi, the reply given by the Revenue Authorities was that the land in question was a Bhumidhari with transferable rights and that it belonged to the vendors. It also states that there was no declaration under Section 143 declaring the land to be an Abadi land.
(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioner relied upon a decision reported in 2005 (98) RD 511 (Ram Khelawan @ Bachcha v. State of U.P. Through Collector, Hamirpur and another) and submitted that unless the land was definitely an Abadi land it could not be simply presumed that just because the land in question was near an Abadi it had to be valued as an Abadi. Further, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the existence of a construction measuring 50 sq.m. and that too which had 'Khaprail' over it could not lead the authorities to conclude that the land in question was an Abadi. Further more, learned counsel for the petitioner submits that there was also no material on record on the basis of which the authorities could have concluded that the plot in question would ever be used as an Abadi in the near future.;