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3. It is contended by counsel for the petitioner that both the courts below went wrong in relying upon the Agreement to Sell propounded by the defendants to deny the plaintiff his right to receive rent/user charges of the property of which he was lawful owner and which was in illegal occupation of the defendants. He submitted that the alleged „Agreement to Sell‟ was on a plain paper and was not registered and was bearing no stamp duty. This Agreement to Sell could not even have been looked into by the courts below in view of provisions of Section 17 & 49 of Registration Act, Section 53 A of Transfer of Property Act and Section 35 read with Article 23 A of Indian Stamp Act. Learned counsel for the respondents states that this argument that the Agreement could not be looked into in view of the provisions of above Acts was being raised by the petitioner for the first time before this court and should not be considered.

6. It is absolutely clear that in order to give benefits of Section 53A of Transfer of Property Act, the document relied upon must be a registered document. Any unregistered document cannot be looked into by the court and cannot be relied upon or taken into evidence in view of Sections 17(1A) read with Section 49 of the Registration Act. Thus, benefit of Section 53A could have been given to the respondent if and only if the alleged Agreement to Sell cum receipt satisfied the provisions of Section 17 (1) A of the Registration Act. Section 35 of the Indian Stamp Act gives a mandatory direction to the courts that no instrument chargeable with duty shall be admitted in evidence for any purpose or shall be acted upon by any public officer unless such instrument is duly stamped. Article 23 A provides that where contract is for transfer of immovable property in the nature of part performance in any Union Territory under Section 53A, it attracts 90 per cent of the duty as that of a conveyance deed. Thus, the alleged Agreement to Sell could not have been looked into by the court for any purpose, contrary to the mandate of the statute as given in Section 35 of the Indian Stamp Act.

"111 Determination of lease - A lease of immoveable property determines -
(d) in case the interests of the lessee and the lessor in the whole of the property become vested at the same time in one person in the same right."

It is clear that merger takes place when tenant himself becomes the absolute owner of tenanted premises, which is not the case here.

10. I, therefore, consider that the trial court could not have given benefit of Section 53 A of Transfer of Property Act to respondent under any circumstances even if a suit for specific performance filed by respondent No.2 was pending. Pendency of a suit for specific performance would not have debarred the court below from looking into the document relied upon by the respondent and the effect of the document as to whether such a document can even be looked into by the court for any purpose whatsoever. When the document itself could not be looked into, the question of giving benefit to respondent on the basis of this document would not arise. It was obligatory on the court below to be aware of the law and to apply the law as it stood. Section 17 (1) A of the Registration Act and Section 35 of the Indian Stamp Act were very much there on the statute book. No plea can be taken that these sections were not brought to the notice of the court. Like any other citizen of this country, Judges are also supposed to know the law and apply correct law. Benefit of Section 53A could not have been given to the respondents of a document which could not be looked into. If this document is not looked into, the respondents continue to be in possession unauthorisedly, after expiry of the lease agreement and the respondents were liable to pay the arrears of rent and monthly rent during pendency of the suit to the petitioner as reflected by the lease agreement.