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, and not from the time of its registration.
All non-testamentary documents duly registered under this Act, and relating to any property, whether movable or immovable, shall take effect against any oral agreement or declaration relating to such property, unless where the agreement or declaration has been accompanied or followed by delivery of possession 1 [and the same constitutes a valid transfer under any law for the time being in force:
Provided that a mortgage by deposit of title-deeds as defined in section 58 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 (4 of 1882), shall take effect against any mortgage-deed subsequently executed and registered which relates to the same property.]
No document required by section 17 1 [or by any provision of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 (4 of 1882)], to be registered shall—
(a) affect any immovable property comprised therein, or
(b) confer any power to adopt, or
(c) be received as evidence of any transaction affecting such property or conferring such power, unless it has been registered:
1 [Provided that an unregistered document affecting immovable property and required by this Act or the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 (4 of 1882), to be registered may be received as evidence of a contract in a suit for specific performance under Chapter II of the Specific Relief Act, 1877 (1 of 1877)2 , 3*** or as evidence of any collateral transaction not required to be effected by registered instrument.]
(1. Ins. by Act 21 of 1929, s. 10)
(2. See now the Specific Relief Act, 1963 (47 of 1963).
(3. The words, figures and letter “or as evidence of part performance of a contract for the purposes of section 53A of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 (4 of 1882)” omitted by Act 48 of 2001, s. 6 (w.e.f. 24-9-2001).
(1) Every document of the kinds mentioned in clauses (a), (b), (c) and (d) of section 17, sub-section (1), and clauses (a) and (b) of section 18, shall, if duly registered, take effect as regards the property comprised therein, against every unregistered document relating to the same property, and not being a decree or order, whether such unregistered document be of the same nature as the registered document or not.
(2) Nothing in sub-section (1) applies to leases exempted under the proviso to sub-section (1) of section 17 or to any document mentioned in sub-section (2) of the same section, or to any registered document which had not priority under the law in force at the commencement of this Act.
Explanation.—In cases, where Act No. 16 of 1864 or the Indian Registration Act, 1866 (20 of 1866), was in force in the place and at the time in and at which such unregistered document was executed, “unregistered” means not registered according to such Act, and, where the document is executed after the first day of July, 1871, not registered under the Indian Registration Act, 1871 (8 of 1871), or the Indian Registration Act, 1877 (3 of 1877), or this Act.
