Syed Azhar Hussain vs Sawlal Marwari

The plaintiff in this case asked for a declaration that a document which had been registered u/s 75 of the Registration Act was a forgery, and in the alternative for a declaration that it was not registered in accordance with law. The finding of the Court below was that it is not a forgery and that it was duly registered. The finding as to the genuine character of the document is a question of fact into which we cannot go.

The allegation that the document was not duly registered is based upon the fact that on receiving a petition nominally u/s 72 the Registrar treated it as a petition u/s 73, but instead of summoning witnesses as contemplated u/s 74 awaited the result of criminal proceedings in which the executant who\\ had denied his signature had been prosecuted for false denial of execution. The plaintiff was convicted of falsely denying execution. The enquiry made by the Registrar u/s 74 consisted solely of an examination of the criminal proceedings and recording findings in accordance with them. It is suggested, therefore, that his order u/s 75 was without jurisdiction. In this connection the case of Mata Dayal v. Queen-Empress 24, 0. 756 : 12 Ind. Deo. 1172 is quoted. Now in the first place this case has reference to the criminal rights of the parties, not to the civil rights, and in the second place it cannot be denied that the Registrar has no power to delegate his enquiry to a Sub-Registrar, and that, therefore, any enquiry that the Sub-Registrar might make would be an enquiry without lawful authority and the result of it should not be considered in coming to a conclusion upon the question of execution, But it cannot be denied that a Criminal Court has full jurisdiction to enquire into a fact of execution when the party denying execution is present before it as an accused u/s 82 of the Registration Act, and undoubtedly the result of that enquiry would be a fact which might have been taken into consideration in the Registrar''s Court. It is not clear moreover from the order sheet whether the alleged executant asked for any witnesses to be summoned or suggested that any further enquiry should be made in the Registrar''s Court. In any case it seems to me that it was the intention of the Act that the enquiry made u/s 74 should be a summary enquiry, and that the real enquiry as to the genuine character of the document should be made in a suit brought u/s 39 of the Specific Relief Act. I cannot say that the proceedings of the Registrar should be ignored as being entirely without jurisdiction or that his order for registration of the document was absolutely void. In this view the appeal must be dismissed. The appeal is dismissed with costs.

If the security for costs ordered by the learned Registrar took the form of a cash deposit, the appellants are entitled to withdraw the cash deposit.