New Registration Rule To Cost Bengal Rs 15 Cr In Revenue

The West Bengal government's recent decision to enforce the amended Registration Act, 1908, from yesterday is expected to result in an annual loss of Rs 15 crore to the state exchequer. The amendment was given Presidential assent on December 10, 1996.

The state government has decided to omit section 30 (2) of the Act in the concurrent list, which gives powers to the registrars of the four presidency towns of Calcutta, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai to register any document pertaining to property in any part of India.

With the new amendment, said a source at the Registrar of Assurances office, the registrar of Calcutta cannot register any document relating to immovable property outside the jurisdiction of the Calcutta High Court, let alone the state of West Bengal. But the registrars of Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai will be able to register documents relating to properties situated in West Bengal. So the flight of documents, the reason for which the West Bengal government brought about this amendment, cannot really be stopped.

The Registrar of Assurances, Calcutta, collects revenue in the shape of stamp duty and registration fees of about Rs 15 crore a year by registering documents relating to properties in other states.

Besides the loss of revenue, this amendment is likely to be detrimental to the interests of the state, as it is being made at a time when the state is trying to promote industrial development, said Debanjan Mondal of the solicitor's firm Fox and Mondal, while speaking to Business Standard.

Legal analysts said entrepreneurs from West Bengal and other states would hesitate to set up units in the state as they would face the problem of getting their documents registered in different district registration offices.

State and central government employees will also find it inconvenient to register Deed of Mortgage for house building loans concerning properties outside the original jurisdiction of the Calcutta High Court.

Licenced copy writers will also be thrown out of work. This may pose a serious problem as the copy writers belong to an organised sector of employed youth under the licencing system of the government.

The state government which was earlier charging an exorbitant 12 per cent as stamp duty on sale deeds, about six months ago, reduced it to 7 per cent, still higher than Delhi's 4 per cent.

After this reduction, the government was able to bring down the flight of registration to Delhi by more than 50 per cent. With the flight of registration having come down, there was no need for this amendment, pointed out the source.

Four writ petitions have already been filed against this amendment, out of which two have been filed by the lawyers' forum and the association of copy writers. The hearing of these petitions is expected to come up tomorrow.