New circular to curb fraud in property dealings

The Maharashtra government, in a bid to check forgery in multiple transactions and fraud in property dealings, has issued a new circular whereby confirmation deed and declaration deed will not be accepted unless stamp duty on the current market value of properties is paid by the parties concerned.

The state government move comes after cases of forgeries and fraud in property dealings increased. The circular has been issued by the Inspector General of Registration and Controller of Stamps.

A senior government official associated with this development told Business Standard, "The circular has been issued on December 22. It makes it clear that the confirmation deed and the declaration deed with annexure of the document for registration will not be accepted in case the parties concerned have not paid the stamp duty on the current market value of properties."

As per the Registration Act, the document has to be registered within four months from the date of execution of the deed and further four months with penalty. However, it was found that people were not coming forward for registration and the said documents regarding the transactions were not coming into the public domain, resulting in multiple transaction and fraud.

The official recalled that the Supreme Court in its judgment Citation (ILR 21 Vol. 924) Gokulbhoy Mulchand Tullockchand Harnath & Ors said: “If the two documents are essentially distinct, being separately stamped and executed to effect different objects, the Registrar has no power to register them as one, even if the party presenting them for registration styles one of them to be the annexure of the other especially where the registration of the document styled the annexure or appendix is barred by limitation”.