Registering officers not conferred with quasi-judicial powers: HC

CHENNAI: Holding that the registering officers are not conferred with any quasi-judicial powers and they only should discharge the administrative duties, the Madras High Court quashed the impugned order of a district registrar directing the deletion of the name of a man from the revenue records for a land.

“The Supreme Court had authoritatively held that as per Section 35 of the Registration Act, 1908, registering authority does not confer with a quasi-judicial power. The registering officer is expected to reassure that the document to be registered is accompanied by supporting documents. He is not expected to evaluate the title or irregularity in the document as such, ” Justice GR Swaminathan ruled.

The judge passed the direction on allowing the petition filed by Anusha Rajinikanth, a resident of Coimbatore. The petitioner prayed for a direction to quash the order of the district registrar dated April 7 restraining the sub-register, Coimbatore north taluk from registering a land that was bought by the petitioner from one named Santhalingam.

According to the petitioner that the land for which the sale deed was executed by Santhalingam, but, some other parties raised disputes claiming rights on the land.

“When the issue was taken before the jurisdictional tahsildar, the tahsildar passed an order in favor of Santhalingam. The same order was challenged by the opposite parties before the district revenue officer and the DRO on October 15, 2018, quashed the order of the tahsildar directing the revenue authorities to delete the name of Santhalingam from the particular land’s revenue records. Therefore, a petition was moved before the HC, and status quo was ordered in this matter on November 15, 2021, with a direction to include Santhalingam as join pattadhar, ” the petitioner submitted.

The petitioner further submitted that during that time, the man executed the sale deed of that land to her. “When we approached the jurisdictional sub-registrar, the officer did not register the land and kept it as the pending document. Therefore, the decision was challenged before the district registrar. The district registrar rejected our case on the grounds of the impugned order passed by DRO. It is noted that the DRO’s order was already quashed by the HC, ” the petitioner noted.

The judge, while quashing the impugned order of the district registrar pointed out the registering officer cannot decide as to whether a document presented for registration is executed by a person having title, as mentioned in the instrument, and directed the sub-register to register the land in favor of the petitioner.

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