Letter No. 49375/C2/2019, Dated 14.09.2020

What the approval does

The Tamil Nadu Registration Department's Letter No. 49375/C2/2019 dated 14 September 2020 forwards the Government's administrative approval for digital e-stamping. National e-Governance Services Limited may use the services of Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited, the appointed e-stamping implementing agency, to issue e-stamps in digital form for specified instruments.

The Commercial Taxes and Registration (J1) Department gave the approval in Letter (Ms) No.127 dated 4 August 2020 to support ease of doing business and the objectives of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.

Who may be affected

The digital e-stamping approval is relevant to banks, finance companies, lenders, borrowers and parties executing the listed financial or commercial instruments. It may also affect professionals handling affidavits, guarantees, bonds, powers of attorney, mortgages, security documents and short leases.

Property buyers and owners should note that the approval does not generally replace the registration process for documents that must be registered or that the parties choose to register.

Instruments covered

The approved instruments are:

• Acknowledgements and affidavits.
• Loan repayment agreements made by a bank or finance company.
• Agreements or other documents concerning deposit of title deeds, pawn or pledge of movable property.
• Bank guarantees, letters of credit, bonds and composition deeds.
• Further charges relating to movable property and indemnity bonds.
• Letters of licence.
• Mortgage deeds without possession and hypothecation deeds relating to movable property.
• Powers of attorney relating to movable property.
• Reconveyances of mortgages relating to movable property.
• Respondentia bonds, security bonds and debentures.
• Leases for less than one year.

Registration limits

The Commercial Taxes and Registration (J1) Department's Letter (Ms) No.127 states that documents which must be registered, or which parties choose to register, must be presented to the registering officer in person and in physical form within four months from execution. A document that is not intended to be registered may be maintained in dematerialised form with electronic signatures.

The Government treated electronically generated stamps as including both physical e-stamps and digital e-stamps. The source also states that the viability of dematerialised stamping for compulsorily registrable documents may be considered later after examining whether the Registration Act, 1908 requires amendment.