Evade stamp duty, pay 10-fold fine

Undervaluing your property to avoid paying full stamp duty could earn you a penalty 10 times that amount. Neelam Pandey reports.

Undervaluing your property to avoid paying full stamp duty could earn you a penalty 10 times that amount.

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A property owner in northwest Delhi's Pitampura, who tried to save Rs 29 lakh by this method, will now have to pay a Rs 3.22-crore penalty.

That's not all. An FIR has been registered against him and has been sent to the economic offences wing of the Delhi Police.

The buyer bought the property at the market price of Rs 5.37 crore. But after making a deal with the seller, a sale deed was registered at the office of the sub-registrar of Pitampura last year for just Rs 48 lakh.

Hence, rather than paying a stamp duty of Rs 32.22 lakh (6% of Rs 5.37 crore) to the government, the seller merely paid Rs 2.88 lakh.

A complaint was made to the sub-divisional magistrate, Model Town, and the northwest district deputy commissioner. The penalty was imposed on the buyer after a scrutiny of the documents revealed the duty evasion.

Directions have been issued by Vijay Dev, divisional commissioner of Delhi and secretary (revenue), to all deputy commissioners to scrutinise all sale deeds. "We will be carrying out an exercise in the entire city. A 10-fold penalty will be imposed on those trying to undervalue their property. It will be treated as fraud and theft of government revenue. This move will help keep a check on black money too," Dev said.

The deputy commissioners have also been asked to keep an eye out for property transactions of a similar nature in the same locality, so that if there are discrepancies in the value, they can be investigated.