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Time ceiling on registration: Supreme Court says sale document invalid if not filed within four months

Proviso to Section 34 also enables the Registrar to condone the delay if the document is presented within a further period of four months, on payment of a fine

Our Bureau
Published 13.06.25, 09:50 AM

The Supreme Court has ruled that a sale deed has to be registered under the Registration Act 1908 within four months of the agreement finalised by the seller and buyer, failing which it becomes an invalid transaction.

“An instrument of conveyance is compulsorily registrable under the Registration Act. Section 23 prescribes four months for presenting a document for registration from the date of its execution,” the apex court said. Section 24 provides that if there are several persons executing a document at different times, such a document may be presented for registration or re-registration within four months from the date of such execution.

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In the instant case, all the executants, parties to the agreement, must have signed on the day shown in the agreement. The proviso to Section 34 also enables the Registrar to condone the delay if the document is presented within a further period of four months, on payment of a fine.

"The validation of the sale agreement, which clearly is shown to be not one executed by the declarants, because of it materially differing from that produced as Annexure P-33… smacks of fraud,” the order said.

A bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice K Vinod Chandran passed the verdict while disposing of a batch of appeals challenging an order passed by a Division Bench of the Telangana High Court, which had taken a contrary view and had upheld the validity of the sale deeds despite the statutory conditions not being fulfilled.

The division bench had passed the order while setting aside a single judge bench’s order, which had held that the alleged sale deed registration after several years was a sham transaction.

The State of Telangana and some aggrieved private land owners had filed the appeal in the land dispute of about 53 acres on the outskirts of Hyderabad city. In this case, 24 years after the agreement was executed, the authorities had validated the transaction despite the law specifying a maximum four-month period between the time of execution and the date of registration.

Property Deed Registration Supreme Court
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