Holding the recent amendment to the Registration (Odisha Amendment) Act of 2013 as ultra vires, the Odisha High Court has allowed registration of any document of immovable property even without the production of record of rights (RoR).
An order to this effect was passed by single-judge Bench of Justice BK Patel on Friday while adjudicating a petition filed by one DP Pradhan of Cuttack.
The court also made it clear that the parent Act of registration of property shall prevail in the State.
The State Government last year brought amendment to the Registration Act of 1908 in which it was mandated that the registering officers were debarred from registering any document of immovable property unless the transferor produces the RoR of the property.
A PIl to this effect was also moved in the High Court in July this year by the Bhubaneswar Bar Association in which the association president had stated that the Section 22A (2) of Odisha Amendment of Registration Act amended as per the Act of 2013 was ultra vires and contrary to the provisions of the principal Act.
The amended section said that any instrument relating to the transfer of immovable properties by way of sale, gift, mortgage, exchange or lease is produced before the registering officer, he shall not register unless the transferor produces the record of rights for the satisfaction of the registering officer that such transferor has right, title and interest over the property so transferred.
Challenging the amendment, the petitioner had maintained that the principal Act of 1908 does not prescribe any precondition for submission of additional ownership document while registering a document of an immovable property.