Registration Act, 1908

This law establishes the system for registering documents in Pakistan, such as sales deeds, gifts of property, and leases. Section 17 lists which documents must be registered - e.g. instruments of gift of immovable property, other documents creating or transferring rights worth one hundred rupees and upwards in immovable property (a very old rupee threshold), and leases of a year or more. Section 18 covers documents that can optionally be registered.

The Act sets up the registration machinery: Section 3 creates the office of Inspector-General of Registration, and under Sections 5-8 Provincial Governments establish district Registrars and sub-district Sub-Registrars, with Inspectors to oversee registration offices. Parts IV-IX (Sections 23-46) set out the timing, place, and procedure for presenting documents, including special rules for wills and powers of attorney.

Sections 47-50 (Part X) explain that once registered, a document takes effect from its execution date and generally takes priority over unregistered documents affecting the same property. This means failing to register a document that Section 17 requires to be registered can leave it legally ineffective for these purposes (Section 49).

Part XII (Sections 71-77) sets out what happens if a Sub-Registrar refuses to register a document, including a right of appeal to the Registrar and, ultimately, a right to sue. Part XIV (Sections 81-82) penalizes officials who fraudulently register or endorse documents and people who make false statements during registration. Section 90 exempts certain government-issued records, such as land-settlement and survey documents, from registration.

This is a very old law (1908) with a long history of amendment (by Adaptation Orders in 1937, 1949, 1961, and the Federal Laws Revision Ordinance, 1981, among others). Anyone relying on specific figures, such as the one-hundred-rupee threshold in Section 17, should check the current official text rather than this historical wording.