-1775566486832_d.png "Supreme Court rules High Courts cannot waive stamp duty penalties")
Supreme Court rules High Courts cannot waive stamp duty penalties
The Supreme Court has ruled that a High Court cannot waive the statutory penalty payable on deficient stamp duty, holding that such power lies exclusively with the competent authority under the relevant Stamp Act. In a significant judgment, a bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and K. Vinod Chandran set aside a Karnataka High Court order to the extent it had exempted payment of penalty while directing payment of deficient stamp duty on lease documents. The apex court was dealing with an appeal arising out of a long-pending partition suit filed in 2008, where the admissibility of two lease documents was contested on the ground of insufficient stamping. The Justice Sanjay Kumar-led Bench clarified that once an instrument is found to be insufficiently stamped, its impounding is mandatory under the Karnataka Stamp Act, 1957, and the statutory scheme leaves no room for courts to dilute penalty provisions in the manner adopted by the High Court. “The High Court cannot, by itself, direct payment of stamp duty and absolve the penalty which is otherwise mandated under …
