Court Upholds Registrar's Limited Power, Dismisses Fraudulent Sale Deed Claim.


22-August-2025 Writ Petition >> Criminal Law  

In a recent legal case, a petition seeking to quash a property sale deed based on alleged fraud was dismissed by the court. The petitioner, Sunil Kumar Dawar, had filed a writ petition to direct the District Magistrate to conduct an inquiry and nullify a sale deed registered by his brother, Sanjeev Kumar Dawar, in favor of their advocate, Sanjeev Kumar Yadav.

The case involves a long-standing family dispute over property left by the late Amar Nath Dawar. After his death, his sons, Rajender Pal Dawar and Sanjeev Kumar Dawar, engaged in litigation with their siblings over a Will that was later found to be fabricated. A family settlement was made, but the brothers later repudiated it. The matter came to a head when Sanjeev Kumar Dawar, despite a pending partition suit, secretly sold the family property to Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, an advocate representing his other brother.


 

 

The petitioner alleged that the sale deed was executed through fraud and based on false claims. He filed a civil suit to have the deed declared null and void and simultaneously sought an inquiry from the Sub-Registrar and District Magistrate under Sections 82 and 83 of the Registration Act, 1908. He referenced a circular that gave registrars the power to hold a summary inquiry and, if fraud was found, to annul the registration.

However, the court dismissed the petition, siding with the respondents who argued that registrars have no authority to cancel a registered sale deed. The court's decision was based on several key legal precedents, including Satya Pal Anand vs. State of Madhya Pradesh and Yanala Malleshwari vs. Ananthalu Sayamma. These rulings establish that once a document is registered, the registrar's role is complete. The power to cancel a registration is a substantive matter that requires explicit statutory provision, which the Registration Act lacks. The court also noted that the circular granting such powers to registrars had already been declared ultra vires in a prior judgment, Areness Foundation vs. Government of NCT of Delhi.

The court concluded that since the petitioner had already filed a civil suit to challenge the sale deed's validity, pursuing a separate inquiry under the Registration Act was legally unfounded. The petition was dismissed as being without merit, and the court held that no directions could be issued to the respondents to quash the registered document.


Section 82, Registration Act - 1908  

Section 83, Registration Act - 1908  

Registration Act, 1908