Bengaluru: To avoid recurrence of litigations after sale deeds are declared void, the Karnataka high court has issued guidelines to civil and commercial courts as well as sub-registrars for a time-bound updation of the property documents.In suits where a registered document pertaining to an immovable property is declared void, cancelled, or terminated, all civil courts and commercial courts in the state should ensure that a copy of the decree is transmitted to the jurisdictional sub-registrar in whose office the document was registered, ordinarily, within four weeks, Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum specified in his recent order.Such a communication should clearly mention the document number, the date of registration, the book and volume, and the nature of the document cancelled. The decree transmitted should be accompanied by a covering communication requesting the sub-registrar to make necessary entries in the relevant register and indexes, the judge added.The sub-registrar should make the required entries in the relevant register and indexes within four weeks of the receipt of such communication.Even in cases where no formal communication is received from the court and if a party produces a certified copy of the judgment and decree declaring the registered instrument as cancelled or void, the sub-registrar should not refuse to act upon the decree. In such a case, the sub-registrar should verify the authenticity of the certified copy and record the cancellation in the relevant register and index.The registering authority should not insist upon separate orders of the high court or any other authority once a competent civil court has declared the document to be void or cancelled. The role of the sub-registrar in such cases being ministerial, the authority should not adjudicate upon the correctness or validity of the decree, Justice Magadum observed.In the case on hand, petitioner Antony Samy K approached the court citing that despite a decree passed by a special court annulling the general power of attorney and joint development agreement documents executed by him in relation to a property owned by him, the sub-registrar of Mahadevapura refused to incorporate the same in the encumbrance certificate, on the ground that they had not received a copy of decree of the court.Justice Magadum said the inevitable consequence in such instances is that parties who have already obtained a decree from a competent civil court are compelled to once again approach the high court, seeking directions to the sub-registrar to give effect to the decree.Such avoidable litigation leads to an unwarranted burden on the constitutional courts, which are then required to expend valuable judicial time on matters that are essentially administrative in nature.If the mandate is scrupulously followed by civil courts by promptly communicating decrees cancelling registered instruments to the registering authority, a significant volume of such avoidable writ petitions can be prevented, thereby preserving the scarce judicial time of constitutional courts for adjudication of substantive disputes requiring judicial determination, the judge noted.
