Section 25 of Indian Contract Act 1872 states that an agreement without consideration, is void unless it is in writing and registered under the law. For example if A out of love and affection promises to give his son B Rupees 5,000 and puts it into writing and registers it then it is a valid contract. Under Indian Contracts Act the buyer can enter into written contract with the seller and then register the contract along with valid proof of execution of the contract as per the law. When ignorant people who have no idea about the law, sometimes become helpless when they are robbed of their homes because of invalid transactions of the residential plot of land, so registration helps every person to make their transaction legal and binding under the law.
Where law requires an agreement to be put in writing or to be registered it must be complied with. Indian Trusts Act states that creation of a trust to be reduced to writing and so it must be done so. Registration Act 1908 gives the mechanism to the concept of notice to the world. Some documents that are registered in Book 1 in Registration offices are public documents which are open to public who can inspect them and get copies of the same. Registration Act is a very old legislation made even before independence which are implemented in many parts of our country without much alterations to it. Registration department’s main duty is to preserve the documents, as the Civil Courts mainly depend on this department in deciding issues like ownership, possession rights etc of immovable property. Section 17 of the Registration Act 1908 lists the documents that are required to registered.
Documents relating to immovable property transactions like sale, lease, mortgage, partition should be presented to the jurisdiction of Registrar office for registration. Any executant of the document can present the document for registration. If an agent is presenting the document executed by the principal then an attestation is needed from principal to register the documents.
In K.B.Saha And Sons Pvt. Ltd vs M/S Development Consultant Ltd on (12 May, 2008) Supreme Court held that a document required to be registered and if it is not done so then it is not admissible under evidence as per Section 49 of the Registration Act and if it is not admissible then none of the its terms can be admitted in evidence.
by Sushma Javare.