Rajasthan HC Upholds Exclusion Of Unregistered Relinquishment Deed Used To Claim Exclusive Property Title

The plaintiff brought a suit seeking cancellation of a sale deed, declaration, partition and injunction concerning a house and shop.

Defendant No. 1 relied on a relinquishment deed dated 5 December 2009, allegedly executed by the plaintiff’s father, to claim exclusive title and possession.

On the plaintiff’s application, the Civil Court held the deed inadmissible for want of compulsory registration.

Defendant No. 1 then sought to have the deed impounded so that deficit stamp duty could be paid; the Civil Court dismissed that application, reasoning that impounding would not cure the registration defect.

The petitioner challenged both orders under Article 227 of the Constitution.

The Court applied Sections 17(1)(b) and 49 of the Registration Act, 1908: an instrument that purports to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish rights in immovable property of the prescribed value requires registration, and an instrument requiring registration but not registered is inadmissible to affect that property, subject to the statutory proviso.

It treated insufficient stamping and non-registration as distinct defects, holding that curing a stamp-duty deficiency does not cure the failure to register a compulsorily registrable instrument.

On collateral use, it relied on M/s Paul Rubber Industries Private Limited v. Amit Chand Mitra & Anr., holding that the deed could not serve a collateral purpose where the nature of possession was itself central to the dispute.

It also referred to Swaroop Singh v. Subhash Singh and Dinaji v. Daddi on inadmissibility of an unregistered instrument, and to Ramesh Chandra & Ors. v. Additional District Judge & Ors. for deciding fundamental admissibility objections promptly rather than deferring them to final arguments.

The Court noted that deficit duty could be deposited independently under Section 4 of the Rajasthan Stamp Act, 1998, read with Rule 3A of the Rajasthan Stamp Rules, 1962.

The deed was relied on to establish the petitioner’s asserted exclusive title and possession, and the Court found that it purported to extinguish rights in immovable property; it therefore required registration under Section 17(1)(b), and the Civil Court correctly treated it as inadmissible under Section 49.

The Court held that payment of deficit stamp duty could not remedy that separate registration defect, and that impounding would not make the deed admissible for the purpose for which the petitioner sought to rely on it.

Because possession was a core issue between the parties, the proposed use was not collateral.

The Court also considered it proper to decide the admissibility objection at that stage, rather than defer it.

It found no jurisdictional error, patent illegality or procedural irregularity in either Civil Court order, affirmed the orders dated 7 October 2025 and 25 February 2026, and dismissed the connected writ petitions.

Any interim orders were vacated; there was no order as to costs.