SRINAGAR: The Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has directed the concerned Sub-Registrar to register a revocation of a Power of Attorney within seven days, holding that the registering authority cannot delay or deny registration by advising a citizen to seek a civil court remedy.
Justice Rajnesh Oswal, in a judgment pronounced on August 14, allowed a writ petition filed by Muzaffar Hussain Rather, observing that the Sub-Registrar’s role under the Registration Act, 1908, is primarily ministerial and does not extend to adjudicating upon the legality or merits of a document presented for registration.
The court directed the Sub-Registrar to register the document concerning revocation of the Power of Attorney within seven days of receiving the court order, provided there was no other legal impediment.
Rather had executed an “Irrevocable General Power of Attorney” in favour of respondent Chand Bi Bi on March 25, 2009. After alleging fraudulent conduct and breach of trust, he issued a public notice in August 2025 and served a legal notice before approaching the Sub-Registrar for registration of the revocation deed.
The Sub-Registrar neither registered the revocation nor passed a reasoned order refusing registration, prompting Rather to approach the High Court.
The registering authority had argued that a 2023 government order had deleted, with retrospective effect, the entry relating to “Cancellation of Instrument” and that the J&K National Generic Document Registration System (NGDRS) did not have a separate category or workflow for “Revocation of Power of Attorney”. It had also contended that the petitioner had an alternative remedy of approaching a civil court.
The High Court rejected these grounds.
Justice Oswal held that the deletion of the relevant entry from an administrative checklist could not be interpreted as stripping the Sub-Registrar of statutory jurisdiction to register a revocation of Power of Attorney.
The court noted that the 2022 government order was intended to prevent Sub-Registrars from raising piecemeal objections and demanding additional documents from citizens. The subsequent deletion of the relevant entry from the checklist, it held, could not be construed as removing the registering authority’s statutory jurisdiction.
The court further held that the Sub-Registrar had acted beyond the scope of the statutory mandate by advising the petitioner to pursue civil remedies and by keeping the registration of the revocation deed pending.
Referring to the Supreme Court’s judgments in K. Gopi v. Sub-Registrar and Others and M. S. Ananthamurthy v. J. Manjula, the High Court also observed that merely describing a Power of Attorney as “irrevocable” does not make it irrevocable.
An agency becomes irrevocable under Section 202 of the Contract Act only where the agent has an independent interest in the subject matter of the agency, the court observed. In the absence of such an interest, the authority remains revocable by the principal.
The court consequently allowed the writ petition and disposed of the matter with the seven-day direction to the Sub-Registrar.
