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Section 47: Time from which registered document operates

Registration Act • Official Statutory Text & Practice Guide

Statutory Regulation
Legal Standard
Competent Court / Tribunal
Act 1908
Section 46 All 93 Sections of Registration Act Section 48

Legal Commentary & Landmark Judgments: Section 47

Section 47 of the Registration Act, 1908 enacts the doctrine of relation back, establishing that a registered document operates from the time of its execution, and not from the date of its registration.

  • Statutory Commencement & Effective Date: Section 47 establishes: 'A registered document shall operate from the time from which it would have commenced to operate if no registration thereof had been required or made.
  • Core Legal Standard: Not from the time of its registration.' The section creates an important legal fiction: registration is a condition precedent to admissibility and legal effect, but once registered, the document's legal efficacy relates back retrospectively to the exact moment of execution.

Section 47 establishes the doctrine of relation back, ensuring that upon registration, a document operates with full legal effect from its date of execution.

This principle is decisive in competing transfer scenarios: if Vendor executes a sale deed in favor of Party A on January 1, and subsequently executes a fraudulent sale deed in favor of Party B on January 15 (which is registered immediately on January 16), and Party A's deed is registered on February 1 within the statutory four-month period, Party A's title relates back to January 1 and completely defeats Party B's intervening conveyance.

Key Landmark Precedents:
  • Gurbax Singh v. Kartar Singh, (2002) 2 SCC 611: The Supreme Court held that Section 47 clearly provides that a document on registration operates from the date of its execution, and not from the date of its registration; a prior executed deed upon registration takes precedence over a subsequently executed but earlier registered deed.
  • Hamda Ammal v. Avadiappa Pathar, (1991) 1 SCC 715: The Supreme Court ruled that where a sale deed was executed before an order of attachment before judgment was passed, the sale deed, upon subsequent registration, relates back to the execution date under Section 47 and prevails over the court attachment.
Legal Commentary:

The doctrine of relation back under Section 47 is crucial in conveyancing and attachment disputes. An intervening attachment, lis pendens, or subsequent conveyance executed between the date of signing and the date of registration cannot defeat the purchaser's title, provided the deed is registered within the statutory timeframe.

Section 46 All 93 Sections of Registration Act Section 48