Release deed — Exemption from payment of stamp duty — Stamp Act Schedule 1

On perusal of Article 55, Schedule 1 of the Indian Stamp Act,
1899 if any person renounced his interest, share or part, then he may be
exempted from payment of stamp duty if the release is made of ancestral property
in favour of brother or sister or son or daughter or father or mother or nephew
or niece. The nature of the property has to be ancestral.

The nature of the property sought to be transferred to the
petitioner cannot be considered ancestral in nature, because the property has
been transferred to the petitioner by Smt. Santoshi who is real sister of
petitioner’s father. In such a situation, the nature of the property cannot be
considered to be ancestral, because the property has come to Smt. Santoshi, from
her sons by virtue of release deed. It was thereafter that his aunt Smt.
Santoshi executed another release deed bearing No. 1909 in favour of the
petitioner. The meaning of expression ‘nephew’ used in Article 55 of Schedule I
of the Act cannot be extended to the petitioner who is alien to the property in
the hands of Smt. Santoshi. Accordingly, the petitioner has not been able to
prove that the nature of the property is ancestral and therefore ad valorem
stamp duty as per the Act was leviable.