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Provided that an unregistered document affecting immovable property and required by this Act or the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 (4 of 1882), to be registered may be received as evidence of a contract in a suit for specific performance under Chapter II of the Specific Relief Act, 1877 (1 of 1877), or as evidence of any collateral transaction not required to be effected by registered instrument."

12. In the reported decision, this Court has adverted to the principles delineated in K.B. Saha & Sons (P) Ltd. v. Development Consultant Ltd. [K.B. Saha & Sons (P) Ltd. v. Development Consultant Ltd., (2008) 8 SCC 564] and has added one more principle thereto that a document is required to be registered, but if unregistered, can still be admitted as evidence of a contract in a suit for specific performance. In view of this 2025:CHC-PB:61 exposition, the conclusion recorded by the High Court in the impugned judgment [Dierdre Elizabeth (Wright) Issar v. Ameer Minhaj, 2016 SCC OnLine Mad 31541] that the sale agreement dated 9-7-2003 is inadmissible in evidence, will have to be understood to mean that the document though exhibited, will bear an endorsement that it is admissible only as evidence of the agreement to sell under the proviso to Section 49 of the 1908 Act and shall not have any effect for the purposes of Section 53- A of the 1882 Act. In that, it is received as evidence of a contract in a suit for specific performance and nothing more. The genuineness, validity and binding nature of the document or the fact that it is hit by the provisions of the 1882 Act or the 1899 Act, as the case may be, will have to be adjudicated at the appropriate stage as noted by the trial court after the parties adduce oral and documentary evidence."