TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2022 (3) TMI 1619
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....the notice dated 14th February, 2022 received from the Registry of the High Court of Delhi, as also notice dated 3rd March 2022 received from the Office of the Assistant Collector (Kalkaji), New Delhi. 3. The suit seeking partition and other reliefs, being CS (OS) No. 442/2018, was filed before this Court by the legal heirs of Late Sh. S.S. Walia who had passed away on 10th December, 2017. The deceased had a large number of moveable and immovable assets which included the business of a petrol station, export business, various immovable properties in prime localities in Delhi and Noida, fixed deposit receipts and bank accounts, paintings, antiques, artworks, shares in various companies and vehicles, etc. During the pendency of the suit itse....
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....order to prepare the decree sheet, the Registry of this Court has directed furnishing of valuation reports of the assets for the purpose of calculating the stamp duty. Thus, the present application has been filed by the Applicant seeking waiver of payment of stamp duty and cancellation of the notices. 6. It is submitted by ld. Counsel for the parties that similar notices have been received by all the other legal heirs as well. In addition, various Collector's offices have already issued notices in respect of the stamp duty payable. 7. It must be noted here that the legal heirs of the deceased persons became part owners of the assets belonging to the two deceased individuals i.e., Mr. S.S. Walia and Dr. Urmila Walia, immediately upon t....
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....ible. The Plaintiff claimed the document dated 09.09.1994 as memorandum of family settlement. Plaintiff's case is that earlier partition took place in the life time of the father of the parties on 25.10.1992 which was recorded as memorandum of family settlement on 09.09.1994. There are more than one reasons due to which we are of the view that the document dated 09.09.1994 was not mere memorandum of family settlement rather a family settlement itself. Firstly, on 25.10.1992, the father of the parties was himself owner of both, the residence and shop being self-acquired properties of Devi Dutt Verma. The High Court has rightly held that the said document cannot be said to be a Will, so that father could have made Will in favour of his tw....
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....ily disputes and rival claims by a fair and equitable division or allotment of properties between the various members of the family; (2) The said settlement must be voluntary and should not be induced by fraud, coercion or undue influence; (3) The family arrangement may be even oral in which case no registration is necessary; (4) It is well settled that registration would be necessary only if the terms of the family arrangement are reduced into writing. Here also, a distinction should be made between a document containing the terms and recitals of a family arrangement made under the document and a mere memorandum prepared after the family arrangement had already been made either for the purpose of the record or for information of the ....
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....being not stamped could not have been accepted in evidence and order of trial court allowing the application Under Order XII Rule 3 Code of Civil Procedure and the reasons given by the trial court in allowing the application of the Defendant holding the document as inadmissible cannot be faulted." 9. The Division Bench of this Court has held in Nitin Jain v. Anuj Jain & Anr. [ILR (2007) II DELHI 271] that a memorandum recording an oral family settlement which has already taken place is not an instrument dividing or agreeing to divide property and is therefore, not required to be stamped. The relevant observations from the said judgment have been extracted below: "6. A Partition Deed is an instrument of partition and has been defined in S....
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....riting records a pre existing right and does. not by itself partition the properties for the first time. As the memorandum only records oral partition which has already taken place but does not in praesenti create any right, it cannot be treated as an instrument creating B partition. [Refer. Tek Bahadur Bhujil v. Debi Singh Bhujil and others reported in AIR 1966 SC 292), Bakhtawar Singh v. Gurdev Singh reported in (1996) 9 SCC 370, Kale v. Dy. Director of Consolidation reported in (1976) 3 SCC 119, Roshan Singh v. Zile Singh reported in AIR 1988 SC 881 and Bachan Singh v. Kartar Singh and others reported in 2001 (10) JT (SC) 64.] 9. In view of the legal position explained above. it follows that a decree of partition is an instrument of pa....