Section 24. (a.) Powers of Collector as to unstamped or insufficiently stamped instruments. Prosecution

24. (a.) Powers of Collector as to unstamped or insufficiently stamped instruments. Prosecution. (b.) Remission of penalty. 24. (a.)—When any instrument is produced before the Collector, otherwise than for the purpose of obtaining an adjudication under section thirty-nine, or has been sent to him under section twenty-three, he shall either proceed in accordance with the provisions of section twenty, exercising the powers thereby conferred on a Civil Court; or if it appear to him that the instrument was executed on unstamped or insufficiently stamped paper with the intention of evading payment of the proper stamp-duty, he shall prosecute all the persons that have executed the said instrument or such of them as to him may seem fit; or if it appear to him that the instrument is properly stamped, or that it is not chargeable with stamp-duty under the law in force in British India at the time of its execution, he shall certify by endorsement thereon that it is properly stamped, or that it is not so chargeable (as the case may be); and he shall thereupon 308 ACT No. XVIII of 1869. upon return such instrument to the registering or other public officer by whom it was sent, or to the person by whom it was produced, and, subject to the provision contained in section forty, it shall be deemed to be properly stamped or not chargeable (as the case may be): (b.)—Provided that, in any case coming under this section, if the instrument is brought within one year from the date of its execution to the Collector, or other public officer by whom it has been sent to the Collector under section twenty-three, and if the Collector is satisfied that such instrument has not been duly stamped previously to being signed or executed by reason of accident, mistake, inadvertence or urgent necessity, he may remit the whole or any part of the penalty prescribed by section twenty: (c.)—Provided also that, in any case coming under this section in which an instrument, other than a bill of exchange or promissory note, purports to have been executed out of British India, if the Collector is satisfied that the instrument was so executed, and also that it has been brought to him within the three months next after its arrival in British India, he shall, on payment of the duty with which such instrument would have been chargeable if executed in British India, certify by endorsement thereon that the proper stamp-duty has been levied upon it. (d.)—Subject to the provision contained in section forty, such certificate shall be conclusive evidence of the amount of stamp-duty leviable on the instrument, which shall thereupon be admissible as if originally executed on paper bearing the proper stamp.