Section 9

Chapter IV: INSTRUMENTS NOT DULY STAMPED 33. Examination and impounding of instruments.—(1) Every person having, by law or consent of parties, authority to receive evidence, and every person in charge of public office, except an officer of police, before whom any instrument, chargeable, in his opinion, with duly is produced or comes in the performance of his functions, shall if it appears to him that such instrument is not duly stamped, impound the same. (2) For that purpose every such person shall examine every instrument so chargeable and so produced or coming before him, in order to ascertain whether itis stamped with a stamp of the value and descriptidn required by the law in force in India, when such instruments was executed or first executed: Provided that — (a) nothing herein contained shall be deemed to require any Magistrate or Judge of a Criminal Court to examine or impound, if he does not think fit so to do, any instrument coming before him in the course of any proceeding other than a proceeding under Chapter XII or Chapter XXXVI of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 (V of 1898); (b) in the case of a Judge of a High Court, the duty of the examining and impounding any instrument under this section may be delegated to such officer as the Court appoints in this behalf. (3) For the purposes of this section, in cases of doubt— (a) the State Government may determine what offices shall be deemed to be public offices; and (b) the State Government may determine who shall be deemed to be persons in charge of public offices. Comments and Case-law [An arbitration award is required to be made on stamped paper by Article 12. This defect in the arbitration award is curable under section 33 and it cannot be said that section 35 of the Stamp Act imposes a permanent bar on the powers of the court to make such an arbitration award a rule of the court, even if the defect 1. Ins.by Bihar Act 6 of 1937 (from 14,1938) 2. See now the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974) | Section 9: Collector's power to refund penalty paid under section 38, sub-section 39. Collector's power to refund penalty paid under section 38, sub-section (1)—(1) When a copy of an instrument is sent to the Collector under section 38, sub- section (1), he may, if he thinks fit, refund any portion of the penalty in excess of five rupees which has been paid in respect of such instrument. (2) When such instrument has been impounded only because it has been written ir contravention of section 13 or section 14, the Collector may refund the whole penalty so paid.