In a review petition filed before the Delhi High Court seeking review of an order dated 30-04-2024, whereby the execution petition was disposed of with a direction to the judgment debtor to pay the balance amount of interest in terms of the calculation furnished by the decree holder, a Single Judge Bench of Justice Jasmeet Singh dismissed the petition, finding no apparent error in the impugned order.
The principal ground of the petition was that the arbitral award dated 18-01-2020 was not executable/enforceable at the time of filing the execution petition as the requisite stamp duty had not been paid by the decree holder. The judgment debtor (National Highways Authority of India) submitted that the arbitral award was for Rs. 18,34,02,838/-, and that the applicable stamp duty, calculated at 0.1% of the awarded amount, would accordingly be Rs. 1,83,402.80/-. However, the decree holder had paid stamp duty of only Rs. 1,18,105/-, besides Rs. 500/- towards stamp paper. It was, therefore, contended that the award was insufficiently stamped and could not have been enforced through execution proceedings.
It was also asserted that NHAI had already deposited Rs. 24,20,41,861/- with the Registry of this Court on 23.05.2023, comprising the awarded amount along with the interest calculated up to 31-03-2023, which was released to the decree holder. Hence, the judgment debtor contended that no further amount towards interest was payable, especially when the award itself was not enforceable. The decree holder, relying on Section 23 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, argued that stamp duty was not payable on the interest component, that it had rightly been calculated on the principal amount, and that there was no deficiency in the stamp duty paid.
The Court noted that the controversy was whether the stamp duty payable on the arbitral award dated 18-01-2020 was to be calculated on the entire awarded amount, including the interest component, or only on the principal amount awarded by the Arbitral Tribunal. The Court held that Section 23 stipulates that where interest is expressly made payable by the terms of an instrument, the instrument shall not be chargeable with duty higher than that with which it would have been chargeable had no mention of interest been made therein. It was stated that the mere inclusion of an interest component in an instrument cannot result in an enhanced stamp duty liability.
The Court found merit in the decree holder’s submission and held that the interest component could not be included in the computation of stamp duty merely because it formed part of the total amount awarded by the Arbitral Tribunal. Further, it was stated that a review cannot be treated as an appeal in disguise or an opportunity to re-agitate issues that had already been considered. Thus, the petition was dismissed as the Court found no error on the face of the record in the impugned order, warranting exercise of review jurisdiction.
