1970 (3) TMI 182

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.... a condition of enrolment under the Army Act, 1950, the Air Force Act, 1950 or the Navy Act, 1957, or (b) for the sole purpose of enabling any person to receive any pension or charitable allowance."; It shall be found that prior to the amendment affidavits made for the immediate purpose of being filed or used in any Court or before an officer of any Court were exempted from duty; but as a result of the amendment, such affidavits are chargeable with stamp duty, though the rate prescribed is lower than for other affidavits. 2. It is contended before us that the U. P. Taxation Laws Amendment Act, 1969, in so far as Article 4 of Schedule I-B is concerned, is beyond the competence of the State Legislature and hence is invalid; and secondly, that Article 4 cannot apply to affidavits where the deponent has sworn the contents thereof. 3. The material provisions of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution are Items 91 and 97 of List I Union List; Item 63 of List II State List; and Item 44 of List III Concurrent List. Item 91 of List I and 63 of List II speak of "rates of stamp duty." Consequently the State Legislature has the power to amend the rates of stamp duty in respe....

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....or persons having an objection to making an oath. When the making of a statement on oath is a rule, and not an exception an affidavit shall ordinarily be a document in which, facts are stated on oath; but because Section 6 of the Oaths Act permits a person to make a statement by affirmation, and not necessarily on oath, even an affidavit where facts are affirmed shall be an affidavit. 6. Under Section 7 of the Oaths Act, the High Court has the power to prescribe the forms of oaths and affirmations. In so far as affidavits are concerned, the forms have been prescribed in Chapter IV Rule 17 of the Rules of Court, 1952. Rule 21 thereof also clarifies that an affidavit includes a petition or other documents required to be sworn and "sworn" shall include "affirmation". 7. At this place it may also be observed, though it is not necessary to express a final opinion, that by virtue of Rule 21 "affidavit" shall not only be a document bearing the heading of an affidavit but also a petition or other document requiring to be sworn or affirmed. 8. From the above it shall be clear that an affidavit is a document which is either sworn or affirmed by the deponent. Ordinarily the affidavit....

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.... true that the definition contained in Section 2(14) of the Stamp Act is not exhaustive; but it shall not be permissible to enlarge the scope of the nature of documents. In case the intention of the Legislature was to treat every kind of document' to be an "instrument", it would not have been necessary to include the words "by which any right or liability ..... or recorded" in the definition and in the manner of English Law, "instrument" could have been defined to include every document. Words used in an enactment are not to be assumed to be superfluous. The Courts of law can omit or add words only when a grammatical interpretation will lead to some absurdity or ambiguity. Where no absurdity or ambiguity exists and the words used in the enactment are plain and can be given their ordinary meaning, the Courts of law must adopt an interpretation which gives due weight to all the words used in the enactment. What can, therefore, be said is that the term "instrument" as defined in Section 2(14), covers every document by which any right or liability is or purports to be created, transferred, limited, extended, extinguished or recorded; it cannot include those documents by which no ri....

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....tion when such instrument was executed or first executed. 16. Section 35 provides that no instrument chargeable with duty shall be admitted in evidence or acted upon by the persons detailed in Section 33, unless such instrument is duly stamped. This section also makes reference to 'instrument chargeable with duty", and not to "instrument" as defined in Section 2(14). However, under proviso (a) to Section 35 an instrument not duly stamped can be admitted in evidence on payment of the deficit stamp duty and a penalty of Rs. 5/- or ten times the deficiency, whichever is more. The words "such instrument" used in the proviso can have reference to only instruments chargeable with duty, and not to instruments as defined in Section 2(14) of the Act. Consequently, an instrument chargeable with duty but not duly stamped can be admitted in evidence only on payment of the deficit stamp duty and penalty as laid down in the proviso. But if such an instrument has been admitted in evidence, its admission cannot, by virtue of Section 36 of the Stamp Act, be called in question at any stage of the same suit or proceeding on the ground that the instrument has not been duly stamped. 17. To su....