Eligible Haryana Farmers Keep Stamp-Duty Exemption On Alternate Land As P&H HC Quashes State’s Retrospective Recovery Directives

Haryana’s Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy, 2010 provided stamp-duty and registration-fee exemptions for qualifying landowners who purchased alternate agricultural land in the State within two years of receiving compensation.

The State gave effect to that benefit through statutory notifications dated 3 January 2011, issued under the Registration Act, 1908 and the Indian Stamp Act, 1899.

After the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 came into force, the Additional Chief Secretary issued letters dated 23 October 2019 and 19 April 2021 stating that the exemptions did not apply to awards made on or after 1 January 2014, and directing audits and possible recovery proceedings under Section 47-A(3) of the Stamp Act.

The petitioners challenged those letters and consequential proceedings, contending that the statutory exemptions remained in force and could not be withdrawn retrospectively by administrative instructions.

The Court treated the R&R Policy as an executive policy granting benefits supplementary to statutory compensation, rather than as a policy deriving its legal force from the Land Acquisition Act, 1894; repeal of that Act therefore did not, by itself, nullify the policy.

The exemptions, however, were given legal effect by statutory notifications issued under Sections 78 and 79 of the Registration Act and Section 9(1)(a) of the Stamp Act, and remained operative until amended or withdrawn through the legally appropriate mechanism.

Executive instructions cannot override statutory notifications; subordinate or administrative measures cannot operate retrospectively to impose fiscal liabilities absent express statutory authority. The Court relied on Union of India v. G.S. Chatha Rice Mills, (2021) 2 SCC 209, and Income Tax Officer v. M.C. Ponnoose, AIR 1970 SC 385, for these principles.

Section 47-A(3) of the Stamp Act permits examination of an instrument’s market value and duty payable within the prescribed period; it does not authorise retrospective withdrawal of an exemption already granted.

The Court found that the R&R Policy addressed rehabilitation and livelihood concerns beyond the compensation framework of the 1894 Act, while the stamp-duty and registration-fee exemptions rested on separate statutory notifications under the Stamp and Registration Acts.

Those notifications had not been amended or withdrawn by the competent authority. The impugned letters were administrative directions, not statutory instruments, and could not add a post-1 January 2014 restriction absent from the notifications or displace the exemptions they conferred.

Nor did Section 9 of the Stamp Act authorise retrospective withdrawal: the power to grant remission retrospectively did not imply a power to rescind it retrospectively.

Section 47-A(3) likewise provided no basis for reopening completed transactions on that ground.

The Court also noted that the petitioners had completed purchases and registrations in reliance on the exemptions and certificates issued by the authorities.

Notices issued under Section 47-A of the Stamp Act, and consequential orders of the Collector or Commissioner founded on those letters, were also set aside.

All writ petitions and pending applications were disposed of accordingly.