Chief justice JS Khehar ruled that the judicial process initiated by the state revenue department was absolutely not justified.
The high court on Friday slapped a fine of Rs1 lakh on the revenue department for filing an appeal against a single-judge bench order to the department to refund the stamp duty and registration fees in a case pertaining to the cancellation of the allotment of a Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) site.
The fine has to be deposited in three months at the Karnataka State Bar Council. K Vijaykumar was allotted site number 609 in the further extension of Banashankari VI Stage. This was denotified on June 29, 2007.
Considering his application to the BDA on June 27, 2009, it had allotted an alternative site, number 213 in Banashankari.
However, Vijaykumar had paid Rs68,400 as the stamp duty and Rs7,820 as the registration fees for the first site.
For the alternative site, he had paid Rs51,260 as the stamp duty and Rs7,820 registration charges.
He had then filed a petition in the high court seeking a mandamus for the refund of stamp duty and registration charges incurred by him for the registration of the earlier site.
The single-judge bench on June 3, 2010, directed the revenue department to refund the stamp duty as well as the registration fees.
The revenue department had later filed an appeal, seeking that the court set aside the single judge’s order. In its appeal, the revenue department contended that the Indian Registration Act provides for the levying of the registration fee for the purpose; it held that a registration fee could be charged for any document that had to be registered.
The case came up for hearing on Friday before the division bench headed by chief justice JS Khehar.
The chief justice slapped a fine of Rs1 lakh on the revenue department for filing an appeal to set aside the earlier order issued by the single-judge bench.
The chief justice observed that the writ appeal is misconceived, and that the judicial process initiated by the revenue department is absolutely not justified. A fine of Rs1 lakh was slapped on the revenue department.
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