- (1.) THE petitioner and the opposite parties are the plaintiff and the defendants respectively in a suit for specific performance of contract, pending on the file of the learned Civil Judge (Senior Division), 1st Court at Alipore, District 24 Parganas (South).
(2.) ON an earlier occasion, the petitioner had approached this Court with an application under Article 227 of the Constitution assailing order no. 55 dated March 8/17, 2011. This Court disposed of the said revisional application on May 19, 2011 with the following order: Having heard Mr. Deb, learned senior advocate for the petitioner and Mr. Mukherjee, learned advocate for the opposite parties, this revisional application stands disposed of with a request to the learned Civil Judge (Senior Division), 1st Court at Alipore, who is in seisin of Title Suit No. 38 of 2007, to make appropriate assessment in terms of Section 35 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 so as to provide the petitioner with an opportunity to deposit the assessed amount as a pre-condition for having the instrument admitted in evidence in the event the petitioner deposits that assessed amount within 3(three) weeks from that such assessment is notified to it, the learned Judge shall proceed to consider and decide the suit as expeditiously as possible since, I am told, it has reached the stage of recording evidence of the witnesses. Till expiry of time to make deposit in terms of the assessment to be made in terms of this order, the suit shall not proceed. It is further made clear that if within the period as directed above the petitioner does not deposit the assessed amount, it shall have no further opportunity of extension for such purpose and the learned Judge shall proceed to decide the suit without admitting the instrument, according to law. This revisional application stands disposed of. After the aforesaid order was communicated to the learned Judge, he had the occasion to deal with the matter on June 14, 2011 when the following order was passed: In view of the order passed by the Honble High Court in C.O. No. 3527 of 2009 (with C.O. No. 1548 of 2011), the Sheristadar of this court is directed to submit necessary assessment report with regard to payment of the stamp duty for impounding the document in question and in this regard the Sheristadar is given the liberty to take the help of the assessment report submitted by the defendant by way of firisti on 21.1.2011. The Bench Clark Mr. Mondal is to communicate this order to the Sheristadar without fail in the meantime and the Sheristadar shall have to submit his report positively by 30.7.11 so that the plaintiff can be asked to do the needful for impounding the document as per order of the Honble High Court. On August 9, 2011, the learned Judge passed the following order: Record is taken up for passing necessary order as the stds submitted his report on 4.8.2011 perused the reports. In view of the reports submitted, the plaintiff is directed to pay stamp duty of Rs. 9,61,003.54/- along with penalty @ ten times over the said amount in connection with the M.O.V. in respect of the premises no.36A, Chandra Nath Chatterjee Street, P.S. Bhabinipur and to pay stamp duty of Rs.3,00,909.90/- along with penalty @ 10 times over this amount in connection with the M.O.V. (dated 9.4.2005) in respect of the premises No. 42F, Asutosh Mukherjee Road, Kolkata-25 respectively by 30.8.2011 and to date for necessary order.
(3.) THE order dated August 9, 2011 is challenged in this revisional application by the petitioner. This Court has heard Mr. Saha, learned advocate appearing in support of the application and Mr. Mukherjee, learned advocate, who opposed the same on behalf of the opposite parties. 6.Section 33 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 empowers the learned Judge of the trial Court to impound an instrument that is chargeable with duty in terms thereof, if it is found not to have been duly stamped. Section 35 of the Act ordains that no instrument chargeable with duty shall be admitted in evidence for any purpose unless such instrument is duly stamped. Proviso to Section 35 further ordains that any such unstamped instrument shall be admitted in evidence on payment of the duty with which the same is chargeable, together with penalty as specified therein.;