Maharashtra to waive penalties on select deficit stamp duty payment cases

In a first, the Maharashtra government has introduced an amnesty scheme to waive the penalty to a significant extent imposed for the deficit payment of stamp duty in select cases.

The waiver shall apply only to pending cases as of March 31, 2022, and in which at least one notice has been served. This scheme shall not be applicable to new cases filed after this date, an official said on Monday.

Property documents get registered at the offices of the sub-registrar under the Registration and Stamp Department. During the scrutiny of these documents during the internal audit, some cases of deficit stamp duty cases come up, the official said.

"These cases of deficit stamp duty come up due to various reasons such as the partial evasion of stamp duty, not paying appropriate stamp duty at the time of executing and registering the property document by the property buyers or the application of improper guidelines by the officials concerned," said the official from the office of the Inspector General of Registration and Stamp Controller.

He added that when such cases of deficit stamp duty are reported during the audit, the penalty is levied.

As per the new amnesty scheme, the state government has decided to waive the penalty to 10 per cent from April 1 to July 2022, and 50 per cent between August 1 to November 30.

"In a nutshell, a waiver of 90 per cent on the penalty amount has been given for the period between April to July and later 50 per cent waiver on the penalty amount on the deficit stamp duty will be applied between August and November," said the official.

He added that this is the first time that such a scheme was introduced to settle cases.