Sub-Registrar sentenced to two months of imprisonment for fabricating sale deed

Madras High Court sentences Sub Registrar and private individual to two months imprisonment for fabricating sale deed.

The Madras High Court has found a Sub Registrar (now under suspension) and a private individual guilty of contempt and sentenced them to two months of simple imprisonment for having fabricated a sale deed and produced it before the court to obtain favourable orders.

Justice N. Sathish Kumar said, if the court shuts its eyes to such blatant illegal acts or ends up showing misplaced sympathy, “it will only encourage unscrupulous officials who may engage in such activities in future in connivance with private parties to achieve their goals.”

The judge also wrote: “Unless the contemnors are convicted under the Contempt of Courts Act of 1971, these types of fraud and fabrication cannot be curbed in a public office particularly in a Registration office where the entries are very important in order to decide the rights of the parties.”

He pointed out that the entries made in the Registration department documents were so vital that they end up deciding the constitutional right to property of individuals. Therefore, production of a fabricated sale deed by the Sub Registrar as well as the private individual would certainly amount to civil contempt.

The judge, however, suspended the sentence for a period of 30 days in order to given an opportunity to the contemnors S. Balamurugan (suspended Sub Registrar of Tiruvarur) and D. Sasikumar to prefer an appeal before a Division Bench of the High Court.

He recalled that Sivaprakasa Pandara Madam had filed a writ petition in 2023 accusing Sasikumar of having got the revenue records related to the Mutt property mutated by producing a fabricated sale deed, supposedly executed in 1974, before the District Revenue Officer.

When Justice Kumar called for the records, the Sub Registrar vouched in favour Sasikumar and produced a certified copy of the “sale deed.” Thereafter, when the judge ordered an inquiry by the Inspector General of Registration (IGR), it came to light that an entry related to mortage deed had been tampered with and entered into the records as sale deed.