Kerala High Court pulls up Kollam Revenue Divisional Officer for negligence

Kochi: The Kerala High Court has flayed Revenue Divisional Officer, Kollam, for the delay in processing a power of attorney produced by an NRI. The court directed the RDO to impound the document produced by Mr Thomas C. Kunjachan as and when it is presented before him and ensure payment of deficit duty and penalty and immediately endorse the same and return the document so that further inconvenience is avoided. 

The court observed that section 39 of the Kerala Stamp  Act  clearly authorises the RDO to stamp the instrument impounded and once it is stamped with penalty it becomes a valid instrument for all purposes thereafter. The court observed that it is surprised that the RDO, who should have been aware of these provisions, being the collector under the Act, has abdicated his duty. Instead of sticking to hyper technicalities, he could  have indicated to the writ petitioner/appellant that the document being not duly stamped was required to be impounded and could have asked him to remit the stamp deficit and pay the penalty.

Once that was done, the instrument gets its validity again. But instead he chose to keep quiet and dragged the petitioner to the corridors of this court. The only consequence is that time and money of everybody, including this court, has been wasted.    Mr Thomas moved the court arguing that he along with his mother resides in the United States of America. They have some properties in  Kerala. The mother being old  had executed a power of attorney in the  state of Texas, USA, in favour of the appellant in respect of certain properties.

This power of attorney had the endorsement of the Indian consulate in the U.S. On the strength of the power of attorney, the appellant executed several transfer deeds in respect of the properties in India.  When the said power of attorney was produced before the State Bank of Travancore, Punalur branch, the appellant was informed that it was not duly stamped and accordingly it could not  be acted upon. The appellant then approached the RDO  seeking an adjudication whether it was properly stamped or not.  The RDO stated that it could not be stamped as it was time- barred. This decision was challenged before the court.