THE INDIAN REGISTRATION ACT, 1908
W.S.
HAMILTON,
Inspector-General of Registration, Punjab.
PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF
1919
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THE only reason for issuing the present edition is the fact that the previous edition of 1910 has been exhausted. There has been o revision beyond a fe alterations which were found to be necessary in order to bring the Manual up to date or for other reasons.
Inspector-General
of Registration, Punjab
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(PASSED BY THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA IN
COUNCIL)
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18th December, 1908)
registration of documents.
WHEREAS it is expedient to consolidate the enactments relating to the registration of documents; it is hereby enacted as follows :--
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1.
Short Title,
Extent and Commencement:
(1) This Act may be called the Registration Act, 1908.
(2) It extends to the whole of British India, except such districts or tracts of country as the Local Government may exclude from its operation.
(3) It shall come into force on the first day of January, 1909.
In this Act, unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context. –
(1) “addition” means the place of residence, and the profession, trade, rank and title (if any) of a person described, and, in the case of a Native of India, his caste (if any) and his father’s name, or where he is usually described as the son of his mother, then his mother’s name;
(2) “book” includes a portion of book and also any number of sheets connected together with a view of forming a book or portion of a book;
(3) “district” and “sub-district” respectively mean a district and sub-district formed under this Act ;
(4) “District Court” includes the High Court in its ordinary original civil jurisdiction;
(5) “endorsement” and “endorse” include and apply to an entry in writing by a registering officer on a rider or covering slip to any document tendered for registration under this Act;
(6) “immoveable property” includes land, buildings, hereditary allowances, rights to ways, lights, ferries, fisheries or any other benefit to arise out of land, and things attached to the earth, or permanently fastened to anything which is attached to the earth, but not standing timber, growing crops nor grass ;
(7) “lease” include a counterpart, kabuliyat, and undertaking to cultivate or occupy and an agreement to lease;
(8) “minor” means a person who according to the personal law to which he is subject, has not attained majority;
(9) “moveable property” includes standing timber, growing crops and grass, fruit upon and juice in trees, and property of every other description, except immoveable property; and
(10) “representative” includes the guardian of a minor and the committee or other legal curator of a lunatic or idiot.
3. Inspector General of Registration: (1) The Local Government shall appoint an officer to be the Inspector-General of Registration for the territories subject to such Government:
Provided that the Local Government may, instead of making such appointment, direct that all or any of the powers and duties hereinafter conferred and imposed upon the Inspector-General shall be exercised and performed by such officer or officers, and within such local limits as the Local Government appoints in this behalf.
(2) Any Inspector-General may hold simultaneously any other ofice under Government.
4. Branch Inspector-General of Sindh: (1) The Governor of Bombay in Council may also appoint an officer to be Branch Inspector-General of Sindh, who shall have all the powers of an Inspector-General under this Act other than the power to frame rules hereinafter conferred.
(2) The Branch Inspector-General of Sindh may hold simultaneously any other office under Government.
5. District and Sub-Districts: (1) For the purposes of this Act, the Local Government shall form districts and sub-districts and shall prescribe, and may after, the limits of such districts ad sub-districts.
(2) The districts and sub-districts formed under this section, together with the limits thereof, and every alteration of such limits, shall be notified in the local official Gazette.
(3) Every such alteration shall take effect on such day after the date of the notification as is therein mentioned.
6. Registrars and Sub Registrars: The Local Government may appoint such persons, whether public officers or not, as it thinks proper, to be Registrars of the several districts, and to be Sub-Registrars of the several sub-districts formed as aforesaid, respectively.
7. Offices of Registrar and Sub-Registrar: (1) The Local Government shall establish in every district an office to be styled the office of the Registrar and in every sub-district an office or offices to be styled the office of the Sub-Registrar or the offices of the Joint Sub-Registrars.
(2) The Local Government may amalgamate with any office of a Registrar any office of a Sub-Registrar subordinate to such Registrar, and may authorise any Sub-Registrar whose office has been so amalgamated to exercise and perform, in addition to his own powers and duties, all or any of the powers and duties of the Registrars to whom he is subordinate :
Provided that no such authorization shall enable a Sub-Registrar to hear an appeal against an order passed by himself under this Act.
8. Inspectors of Registration Offices: (1) The Local Government may also appoint officers, to be called Inspectors of Registration offices, and may prescribe the duties of such officers.
(2) Every such Inspector shall be subordinate to the Inspector-General.
9. Military cantonments may be declared sub-districts or districts: Every military cantonment may (if the Local Government so directs) be, for the purposes of this Act, a sub-district or a district, and the Cantonment Magistrate shall be the Sub-Registrar or the Registrar of such sub-district or district, as the case may be.
10. Absence of Registrar or Vacancy in his Office: (1) When any Registrar, other than the Registrar of a district including a Presidency-town, is absent otherwise than on duty in his district, or when his office is temporarily vacant, any person whom the Inspector-General appoints in this behalf, or, in default of such appointment, the Judge of the District Court within the local limits of whose jurisdiction the Registrar’s office is situate, shall be the Registrar during such absence or until the Local Government fills up the vacancy.
(2) When the Registrar of a district including a Presidency-town is absent otherwise than on duty in his district, or when his office is temporarily vacant, any person whom the Inspector-General appoints in this behalf shall be the Registrar during such absence, or until the Local Government fills up the vacancy.
11. Absence of Registrar on Duty in his District: When any Registrar is absent from his office on duty in his district, he may appoint any Sub-Registrar or other person in his district to perform, during such absence, all the duties of a Registrar except those mentioned in sections 68 and 72.
12. Absence of Sub-Registrar or Vacancy in his Office: When any Sub-Registrar is absent, or when his office is temporarily vacant, any person who, the Registrar of the district appoints in this behalf shall be Sub-Registrar during such absence, or until the Local Government fills up the vacancy.
13. Report of certain appointments and suspension and removal and dismissal of officers: (1) - All appointments made under section 10, section 11 or section 12 shall be reported to the Local Government by the Inspector-General.
(2) Such report shall be either special or general, as the Local Government directs.
(3) The Local Government may suspend, remove or dismiss any person appointed under the provisions of this Act, and appoint another person in his stead.
14. Remuneration and establishments of registering officer: (1)-The Local Government may assign such salaries as such Government deems proper to the registering officers appointed under this Act, or provide for their remuneration by fees, or partly by fees and partly by salaries.
(2) The Local Government may allow proper establishments for the several offices under this Act.
15. Seal of Registering Officers: The several Registrars and Sub-Registrars shall use a seal bearing the following inscription in English and in such other language as the Local Government directs: --
“The seal of the Registrar (or of the Sub-Registrar) of
16. Register Book and Fire-Proof Boxes: (1)-The Local Government shall provide for the office of every registering officer the books necessary for the purpose of this Act.
(2) The books so provided shall contain the forms from time to time prescribed by the Inspector-General, with the sanction of the Local Government, and the pages of such books shall be consecutively numbered, in print, and the number of pages in each book shall be certified on the title-page by the officer by whom such books are issued.
(3) The Local Government shall supply the office of every Registrar with a fire-proof box, and shall in each district make suitable provisions for the safe custody of the records connected with the registration of documents in such district.
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17. Documents of which Registration is Compulsory: (1)-The following documents shall be registered, if the property to which they relate is situate in a district in which, and if they have been executed on or after the date on which, Act No. XVI of 1864, or the Indian Registration Act, 1866, (XX of 1866) or the Indian Registration Act, 1971, (VIII of 1871) or the Indian Registration Act, 1877, (III of 1877) or this Act, came or comes into force namely:
(a) instruments of gift of immoveable property :
(b) other non-testamentary instruments which purport or operate to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish, whether in present or in future, any right, title or interest, whether vested or contingent, of the value of one hundred rupees and upwards, to or in immoveable property ;
(c) non-testamentary instruments which acknowledge the receipt or payment of any consideration on account of the creation, declaration, assignment, limitation or extinction of any such right, title or interest ;
(d) leases of immoveable property from year to year, or for any term exceeding one year, or reserving a yearly rent ; and
*(e) Non-testamentary instruments transferring or assigning any decree or order of a court or any award when such decree or order or award purports or operates to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish, whether in present or in future, any right, title or interest, whether vested or contingent, of the value of one hundred rupees and upwards to or in immoveable property:
Provided that the Local Government may, by order published in the local official Gazette, exempt from the operation of this sub-section any leases executed in any district, or part of a district, the terms granted by which do not exceed five years and the annual rents reserved by which do not exceed fifty rupees.
Under this proviso the Lieutenant-Governor has exempted from compulsory registration –
(a) agricultural leases ;
(b) leases executed by or on behalf of or in favour of Government.;
the terms granted by which do not exceed five years and the annual rents reserved by which do not exceed Rs.50. Punjab Government notification No.29 of 4th July, 1888 and No.81 of 16th December, 1904.]
(2) Nothing in clauses (b) and (c) of sub-section (1) applies to –
(i) any composition-deed ; or
(ii) any instrument relating to shares in a Joint Stock Company, notwithstanding that the assets of such Company consist in whole or in part of immoveable property ; or
(iii) any debenture issued by any such Company and not creating, declaring, assigning, limiting or extinguishing any right, title or interest, to or in immoveable property except in so far as it entitles the holder to the security afforded by a registered instrument whereby the Company has mortgaged, conveyed or otherwise transferred the whole or part of its immoveable property or any interest therein to trustees upon trust for the benefit of the holders of such debentures ; or
(iv) any endorsement upon or transfer of any debenture issued by any such Company ; or
(v) any document not itself creating, declaring, assigning, limiting or extinguishing any right, title or interest of the value of one hundred rupees and upwards to or in immoveable property, but merely creating a right to obtain another document which will, when executed, create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish any such right, title or interest ; or
(vi) any decree or order of a Court * except a decree or order expressed to be made on a compromise and comprising immoveable property other than that which is the subject matter of the suit or proceeding ; or
(vii) any grant of immoveable property by Government ; or
(viii) any instrument of partition made by a Revenue officer ; or
(ix) any order granting a loan or instrument of collateral security granted under the Land Improvement Act, 1871, or the Land Improvement Loans Act, 1883 ; or
(x) any order granting a loan under the Agriculturists Loans Act, 1884, or instrument for securing the repayment of a loan made under that Act ; or
(xi) any endorsement on a mortgage-deed acknowledging the payment of the whole or any part of the mortgage-money, and any other receipt for payment of money due under a mortgage when the receipt does not purport to extinguish the mortgage ; or
(xii) any certificate of sale granted to the purchaser of any property sold by public auction by a Civil or Revenue officer.
(3) Authoritie to adopt a son, executed after the first day of January, 1872, and not conferred by a will, shall also be registered.
18. Documents of which Registration is Optional: Any of the following documents may be registered under this Act, namely :--
(a) instruments (other than instruments of gift and wills) which purport or operate to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish, whether in present or in future, any right, title or interest, whether vested or contingent, of a value less than one hundred rupees, to or in immoveable property ;
(b) instruments acknowledging the receipt or payment of any consideration on account of the creating, declaration, assignment, limitation or extinction, of any such right, title or interest ;
(c) leases of immoveable property for any term not exceeding one year, and leases exempted under section 17 ;
(d) instruments (other than wills) which purport or operate to create, declare, assign, limit or extinguish any right, title or interest to or in moveable property ;
(e) wills ; and
(f) all other documents not required by section 17 to be registered.
19. Documents in Language not understood by Registering Officer: If any document duly presented for registration be in a language which the registering officer does not understand, and which is not commonly used in the district, he shall refuse to register the document, unless it be accompanied by a true copy of the translation into a language commonly used in the district and also by a true copy.
20. Documents containing interlineations, blanks, erasures or alterations:(1)-The registering officer may in his discretion refuse to accept for registration any document in which any interlineation, blank, erasure or alteration appears, unless the persons executing the document attest with their signatures or initials such interlineation, blank, erasure or alteration.
(2) If the registering officer registers any such document he shall, at the time of registering the same, make a note in the register of such interlineation, blank, erasure or alteration.
21. Description of property and maps or plans: (1)-No non-testamentary document relating to immoveable property shall be accepted for registration unless it contains a description of such property sufficient to identify the same.
(2) Houses in towns shall be described as situate on the north or other side of the street or road (which should be specified) to which they front, and by their existing and former occupancies, and by their numbers if the houses in such street or road are numbered.
(3) Other houses and lands shall be described by their name, if any, and as being in the territorial division in which they are situate, and by their superficial contents, the roads and other properties on which they abut, and their existing occupancies, and also, whenever it is practicable, by reference to a Government map or survey.
(4) No non-testamentary document containing a map or plan of any property comprised therein shall be accepted for registration unless it is accompanied by a true copy of the map or plan, or in case such property is situate in several districts, by such number of true copies of the map or plan as are equal to the number of such districts.
22. Description of houses and land by reference to government maps or surveys: (1)-Where it is, in the opinion of the Local Government, practicable to describe houses, not being houses in towns, and lands by reference to a Government map or survey, the Local Government may, by rule made under this Act, require that such houses and lands as aforesaid shall, for the purposes of section 21, be so described.
(2) Save as otherwise provided by any rule made under sub-section (1), failure to comply with the provisions of section 21, sub-section (2), or sub-section (3), shall not disentitle a document to be registered if the description of the property to which it relates is sufficient to identify that property.