Karnataka High Court issues guidelines to courts, sub-registrars on entering changes as per decrees

Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has issued guidelines to civil and commercial courts and the registering authority on procedure to communicate the decree and to record in the relevant registers and indexes cancelling a registered instrument as per the decree.

Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum has said that failure on the part of civil courts to communicate decrees and the registering authority insisting upon communication on decree leads to unnecessary flooding of litigations and imposes an unwarranted burden on the constitutional courts.

In the case at hand, the petitioner Antony Samy K contended that despite the decree passed by the civil court annulling the General Power of Attorney and Joint Development Agreement documents executed by him for the property owned by him, the Sub-Registrar, Mahadevapura refused to incorporate the changes in the Encumbrance Certificate. The Sub-Registrar issued an endorsement that the office has not received the copy of the decree.

Justice Magadum noted that section 31(2) of the Specific Relief Act casts an obligation on the court to communicate the decree and correspondingly requires the registering authority to record the cancellation. Rule 123 of the Karnataka Registration Rules, 1965 mandates the Sub-Registrar to enter a note of cancellation both in the relevant register and the corresponding index. “The present case highlights a recurring problem faced by litigants even after obtaining decrees cancelling registered documents. The absence of a streamlined mechanism for communication between civil courts and registration offices often results in unnecessary hardship to parties,” Justice Magadum said.

The court further said, “Whenever a decree is passed cancelling or declaring void a registered instrument relating to immovable property, the Court shall direct the office to transmit a copy of the decree to the jurisdictional Sub-Registrar in whose office the document was registered.”

Insofar as the Sub-Registrars, the court said, “Whenever a decree cancelling a registered document is communicated by a civil court, the Sub-Registrar shall make the required entries in the relevant register and indexes within four weeks of receipt of such communication. Even in cases where no formal communication is received from the Court, if a party produces a certified copy of the judgment and decree declaring the registered instrument as cancelled or void, the Sub-Registrar shall not refuse to act upon the decree. In such cases, the Sub-Registrar shall verify the authenticity of the certified copy and thereafter record the cancellation in the relevant registers and indexes in accordance with the Rule 123 of the 1965 Rules.”