‘Order passed by the authority should be reflected in records’

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has observed that once an order is passed by the authority declaring a transaction to be fraudulent and it has become final, the same has to be recorded in t

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has observed that once an order is passed by the authority declaring a transaction to be fraudulent and it has become final, the same has to be recorded in the relevant register and must be reflected in the encumbrance certificate. Justice N. Anand Venkatesh observed that the Registration Act provides a mechanism to the authority concerned to deal with a complaint pertaining to a fraudulent transaction. Once an authority exercises such a power, conducts an enquiry and finds that the transaction was fraudulent, the order passed by the authority should be reflected in the records. The authority on one hand cannot state that he will declare the transaction to be fraudulent and then send the party to a civil court to cancel the document. Declaring a transaction to be a fraudulent one, virtually makes that document void in the eye of law. Once a document is void in the eye of law, it is non est and there is no necessity for a party to unnecessarily spend his time in a civil court seeking for cancellation of such a document. It would be a wasteful exercise without any purpose, the judge said.