Tirath S. Thakur, J.:—
In a suit for specific performance of an agreement to sell, the plaintiffs-appellants herein rely upon an unstamped agreement executed between them and the defendants. The document allegedly executed on 24.8.1998 interalia stipulates that the possession of the property covered by the same has been transferred to the plaintiffs. That appears to be the version of the plaintiffs also as according to them, the possession of the entire property covered by the agreement of sale stands transferred to them by the defendants - vendors thereof. What is significant is that the document was executed after the amendment to the Karnataka Stamp Act, 1957, whereby an agreement relating to sale of immovable property wherein possession of the property is delivered or is agreed to be delivered, would attract the same stamp duty as is payabje on a conveyance at No. 20 of the schedule on the market value of the property. It follows that the agreement to sell relied upon by the plaintiffs - appellants was required to be stamped in accordance with the provisions of Article 5(e) as amended read with Article 20 of the Stamp Act. The agreement to sell does not however bear any stamp whatsoever. In the course of the proceedings before the Trial Court, when the plaintiffs asked for an injunction restraining the defendants from alienating the suit property, the Court noticed the deficiency in the stamp and directed the plaintiffs to pay the same and the penalty in accordance with the law on or before 12.4.2002 Subject to the said payment, defendants 1 to 13 respondents herein were restrained from alienating the suit property to any third party pending disposal of the suit. Time for payment of the Court fee and penalty was at the request of the plaintiffs-appellants extended by various orders passed from time to time up to 21.9.2002 Since the requisite amount of stamp duty and penalty was not paid despite these extensions, the Court below appears to have declined further extension and vacated the interim injunction. In the present appeal, the appellants have questioned the order passed by the Trial Court, in so far as it made the continuance of the injunction against the defendants-respondents herein defendant upon the payment of stamp duty and the penalty in accordance with the provisions of the Stamp Act.
2. Appearing for the appellants, Mr. Shiva Kumar argued that the Court below was in error in directing payment of stamp duty and penalty on the document at an interim stage of the proceedings limited to the grant of an injunction against the defendants. He urged that the question whether any stamp duty was payable on the document with or without penalty could arise for consideration of the Trial Court at the appropriate stage when the plaintiff would rely upon the said document for the grant of a decree for specific performance. That stage could at the earliest be the beginning of the trial after issues were framed in the case but not earlier. In as much as the Trial Court had made the payment of stamp duty and penalty a condition precedent for the grant or continuance of an interim order of injunction, it has committed an error that required correction in appeal.
3. Section 34 of the Karnataka Stamp Act, 1957, interalia provides that no instrument chargeable with duty shall be admitted in evidence for any purpose by any person having by law or consent of parties authority to receive evidence, or shall be acted upon, registered or authenticated by any such person or by any public officer, unless such instrument is duly stamped. Proviso to Section 34 makes such documents admissible in evidence upon payment of penalty. What is important is that Section 34 stipulates a specific prohibition against instruments chargeable with duty being admitted in evidence for any purpose whatsoever. It is also evident from a careful reading of the provision that no such document as is required to be stamped shall be acted upon registered or authenticated by any public officer or person having authority to receive evidence. Suffice it to say that so long as the instrument relied upon by any litigant before a Court is required to be stamped under the provisions of the Act and so long as that instrument remains unstamped, Section 34 forbids its user for any purpose whatsoever by the Court, authority or person competent to receive evidence. The expression “for any purpose” appearing in the section is wide enough to include within its amplitude use of the document for the purposes of issue or refusal of injunctions prayed for in a suit for specific performance or similar other reliefs. There is nothing in the scheme of Section 34 or the Stamp Act to show that a document which is either unstamped or under stamped can be made use of for purposes of issue of an injunction or for grant of any other interlocutory order. A reading of Section 33 of the Stamp Act also lends support to that view. The said provision interlia stipulates that every person having by law or consent of parties authority to receive evidence and every person in charge of a public office, except an officer of police, before whom any instrument, chargeable in his opinion, with duty, is produced or comes in the performance of his functions, shall, if it appears to him that such instrument is not duly stamped, impound the same. The document in question has admittedly been produced by the plaintiffs - appellants before the Court below. It has come to the notice of the said Court that the document in question is not duly stamped. The Court would therefore be entitled to impound the same in exercise of its power under Section 33 of the Act. The argument that the Court below could ignore the provisions of Section 33, act upon the document or make the same, a basis for issue of an interim injunction has not commended itself to me. Neither Section 33 nor Section 34 of the Act makes an exception to the general rule or make unstamped or under stamped documents admissible for the purposes of issuing interlocutory orders. Such documents when produced before the Court are liable to be impounded subject to the provisions of Section 34 which permit their being used upon the party concerned paying the requisite stamp duty and the amount of penalty leviable on the same.
4. In that view, therefore, the Court below would have been justified in first insisting upon the payment of the stamp duty and the penalty on the agreement to sell before it could issue an injunction in favour of the appellants on that basis. Instead of doing so, the Court below appears to have taken an indulgent view by which it has issued an injunction but made its continuance subject to the payment of the stamp duty and penalty on the same by the appellants. The error committed by the Court below is thus for the benefit of the appellants. The Court may well have been justified in ignoring the document so long as it was not properly stamped and the penalty on the same not paid.
5. In the circumstances, therefore, no fault can be found with the impugned order. The direction contained in the same for payment of stamp duty was perfectly in tune with the provisions of the Act. There is no merit in this appeal which fails and is hereby dismissed.