Madras High Court: In a writ petition filed, under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for the issuance of a Certiorarified Mandamus to call for records pertaining to the impugned order of the sub-registrar as arbitrary, illegal, and without jurisdiction and quash the same, V. Bhavani Subbaroyan, J. while dismissing the writ petition, upheld the order of the sub-registrar and directed the petitioner to produce a police complaint, a non-traceable certificate, and a paper publication regarding missing original parent document and certified copy of the document for its registration.
In the present case, the petitioner and his mother-in-law executed two settlement deeds in favour of his second son, who died leaving behind the petitioner, his wife, and two daughters and therefore, is entitled to one-fourth share in the property. He consequently executed a settlement deed bequeathing his rights in favour of his grandson The document was then presented for registration before the respondent who refused it on the ground that original title documents had not been produced. The petitioner then filed for an appeal with the district registrar who passed the impugned order relying upon a circular of the Inspector General of Registration, confirming the order of the sub-registrar, wherein it was stated that the registration should only be done on the production of original title documents.
The Court observed that the Government of Tamil Nadu inserted rule 55-A to the Registration Rules under the Registration Act, 1908, and passed an order (Commercial Taxes and Registration) by amendment. Further, Section 55-A mentioned that only on the production of the previous original documents by which the executant acquires a right over the subject property and an encumbrance certificate pertaining to the property received within ten days will be registered, and if the original document is lost then a non-traceable certificate issued by the police along with an advertisement published in the local newspaper should be presented.
The Court viewed that the petitioner would have to produce a police complaint, a non-traceable certificate, and a paper publication regarding the missing parent document and a certified copy of the document to get the settlement deed registered with the sub-registrar, and directed the sub-registrar to consider the same and register the settlement deed, within a period of 16 weeks.
[Rathinamani v. The District Registrar, Writ Petition (MD) No. 24371 of 2022 decided on 26-10-2022]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
H. Lakshmi Shankar, Advocate, for the Petitioner;
K.S. Selvaganesan, Additional Government Pleader, for the Respondent.