Cancellation deed under stamp law falls under Article 15, not reconveyance, when no possession or interest was ever transferred.

A deed of cancellation of an agreement to sell was chargeable under Article 15, not as a reconveyance under Article 25 of Schedule I to the Bombay Stamp Act, because the underlying agreement had not transferred possession or created any interest in the immovable property. Article 25's deeming fiction applies only where the original instrument satisfies the statutory conditions and operates as a conveyance; if no conveyance had taken place, a cancellation deed cannot be treated as a reconveyance. The Article 25 stamp duty demand was therefore unsustainable, and the instrument remained within Article 15.

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Issues: Whether a deed of cancellation of an agreement to sell, where possession of the property was never transferred and the original agreement did not amount to a conveyance, was chargeable under Article 25 of Schedule I to the Bombay Stamp Act, 1958 as a reconveyance, or under Article 15 as a cancellation instrument.

Analysis: The cancellation deed and the underlying agreement showed that possession of the flats had never been handed over. The agreement itself expressly stated that possession was not transferred and that no interest in the immovable property was intended to be created. The deeming fiction in Article 25 applies only where the statutory conditions are satisfied, so that an agreement to sell is treated as a conveyance for stamp purposes. Those conditions were absent here. Since no conveyance had taken place, there could be no reconveyance on cancellation. Article 25 therefore could not be invoked, and the instrument remained a cancellation deed falling within Article 15.

Conclusion: The deed of cancellation was not chargeable under Article 25 and was chargeable only under Article 15; the impugned demand under Article 25 was unsustainable.

Final Conclusion: The writ petition succeeded and the stamp duty demand based on Article 25 was quashed, leaving the authorities free to proceed only in accordance with Article 15, if applicable.

Ratio Decidendi: A deed of cancellation is chargeable as a reconveyance under Article 25 only if the original instrument had effected a conveyance within the meaning of that article; where no possession or interest in immovable property had been transferred, the cancellation deed falls outside Article 25 and is governed by Article 15.

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