The petitioner is a private limited company engaged in the business of manufacture of polystyrene and expandable polystyrene. It purchased the immovable property of different extents of land admeasuring 87.34 64 hectares situated in Venkatapuram Vepagunta, Gopalapatnam, Visakhapatnam Taluk and District. The petitioner valued the property covered by the sale deed at Rs.20,99,99,220/- and based on that paid the requisite stamp duty and registration fees and submitted the sale deed for registration. Stating that the property is undervalued, the department has not registered the property and kept the registration pending and ultimately assessed the deficit stamp duty at Rs.24,71,222/- and deficit registration fees at Rs.1,24,863/- under sub-Section (5) of Section 47-A of the Stamp Act and the petitioner was informed to pay the deficit stamp duty at Rs.10,23,60,935/-. Challenging this order, the petitioner has preferred an appeal before the Principal Senior Civil Judge, Visakhapatnam in CMA No.13 of 2007. In that CMA, the District Registrar-respondent No.1 filed an I.A. being I.A.No.5 of 2008 under Section 47A (2) of the Act seeking a direction to the appellant-petitioner herein to deposit the entire deficit stamp duty of Rs.10,23,60,935/- before hearing the appeal. The learned Senior Civil Judge after taking into consideration the contentions of the parties, held that the Court cannot insist upon the petitioner to deposit the entire deficit stamp duty imposed by the District Registrar, but can only direct it to pay half of the stamp duty and accordingly directed the petitioner to deposit a sum of Rs.5,12,80,46750 ps with the Court on or before 30-04-2008 for hearing the appeal. The time was later on extended up to 16-06-2008. Aggrieved by the said order, the present writ petition is filed.
