When the state government framed the stamp duty amnesty scheme in June this year, the idea was to bolster its treasury by registering documents of flats sold in the period 1980-85.
When the state government framed the stamp duty amnesty scheme in June this year, the idea was to bolster its treasury by registering documents of flats sold in the period 1980-85. The scheme has now run into trouble.
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Bombay High Court challenging the government’s refusal to register flats under the 2008 amnesty scheme unless the owners paid the unpaid stamp duty - running into thousands of rupees - of the previous occupant at the current market value. The PIL claimed it was unfair on the part of the government to make owners pay stamp duty on a chain of transactions where they were not involved. Nearly 30,000 flat owners have been left in the lurch because of this insistence.
The petition was filed by Anant Nerurkar, a stamp duty consultant at Andheri. He questioned why flat owners were being penalised for a fault of the builders. “Prior to 1985, agreements for sale were charged stamp duty at Rs5. Full stamp duty was payable only after the builder had conveyed the property within four months of the formation of the society,” the petition said. “As builders did not convey the property for years together, they are at fault. How can the government not treat my agreement of sale as proof of my rightful ownership of the flat after 20 years and ask me to pay a high levy?”
The petition requested the court to direct the government to register such documents in the amnesty scheme which ends on November 30.
Despite attempts, state revenue secretary Ramesh Kumar was not available for comment.
Under the scheme, people, who had evaded stamp duty on their property purchase agreements, can regularise their transactions by paying a token penalty of Rs500 for stamp duty of Rs25,000, and a Rs1,000 fine for stamp duty over Rs25,000. Once this scheme lapses, such people would have to pay a penalty of 2% on the total duty amount per month from the date of the flat’s purchase, with the maximum limit being
200%.
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