THE REGISTRATION ACT
SECTION 1: SHORT TITLE, EXTENT AND COMMENCEMENT
- This Act may be called the Registration Act, 1908.
- It extends to the whole of India,
Provided that the State Government may exclude any districts or tracts of country from its operation.
3. It shall come into force on the first day of January 1909.
The Registration Act, 1908 extends to the whole of India. Name of the Act was Indian Registration Act, 1908. The word ‘Indian” in sub- section (1) was omitted by Act no. 45 of 1969.
Narendra v. Damal Basini, (1896) Cal
The object of the present Act was to bring together provisions relating to registration, which were scattered in several Acts, and to incorporate them in one Act. The under mentioned cases throw light on the construction of the present consolidated Act.
Object of the Act
The Registration Act, unlike the Transfer of Property Act, strikes only at documents and not at transactions. In the same way, the Act does not require that every transaction affecting immovable property should be carried out only through a registered instrument.
All that it enacts is that when a document is employed to effectuate any of the transactions specified in Section 17 of the Act, such document must be registered.
The purpose of Registration Act is to give information to people who may deal with property, as to the nature and extent of the rights which persons may have affecting that property. Another purpose is to give solemnity of form and legal importance to certain classes of documents by directing that they shall be registered.
Based on the conclusions arrived at the conference of chief Ministers and Finance Ministers of states and union Territories convened by the Union finance Ministers held on the 14th September 1998 at New Delhi, a new sub-section (1-A) was inserted in section 17 by Act 48 of 2001. It is for making registration of the documents containing contracts to transfer for consideration any immovable property compulsory for the purpose of section 53-A of the Transfer of Property Act.