Registration of Documents (Amendment) Law

Registration of Documents (Amendment) Law

A LAW TO AMEND THE REGISTRATION OF DOCUMENTS ORDINANCE

BE it enacted by the National State Assembly of the Republic of Sri Lanka as follows: –

Short title.

1. This Law may be cited as the Registration of Documents (Amendment) Law, No. 14 of 1974.

Amendment of section 14 of Chapter 117.

2.

(1) Section 14 of the Registration of Documents Ordinance, hereinafter referred to as the” principal enactment”, is hereby amended by the substitution, for subsection (1) thereof, of the following subsection: –

(1) Every instrument presented for registration shall be registered in the book allotted to the division in which the land affected by the instrument is situated and in the folio in which the first registered instrument affecting the same land is registered, or in another folio (whether of the same volume or of another volume) bearing a separate number, opened in continuation thereof, cross reference being entered in the prescribed manner so as to connect the said folios:

Provided that-

(a) an instrument may, if the Registrar thinks fit, be entered in a new folio, cross references being entered in the prescribed manner so as to connect the registration with any previous registration affecting the same land or any part thereof;

(b) where no instrument affecting the same land has been previously registered, the instrument shall be registered in a new folio to be allotted by the Registrar; and

(c) where a new division of a Registrar is created wholly or partly out of a division (hereinafter referred to as the” old division”) of another Registrar, then, in regard to lands which before the date of creation of the new division were wholly or partly within the old division which on and after that date constitutes the new division or, as the case may be, within such part of the old division as on and after that date constitute a part of the new division,-

(i) such of the folios of the book (hereinafter referred to as the” old book”) allotted under section 12 to the old division as contain registrations of instruments affecting any of those lands shall be deemed to form part of the book (hereinafter referred to as the” new book”) allotted under that section to the new division; and

(ii) a registration of an instrument affecting any such land made in the new book and registrations of instruments affecting that land made in the old book shall be connected by cross references made in the prescribed manner in the new book and the old book. ‘.

(2) The amendment made in section 14 of the principal enactment by subsection (1) of this section shall be deemed to have come into force on the date of commencement of the principal enactment:

Provided, however, that the preceding provisions of this subsection shall not affect the decision of any court of law given before the date of commencement of this Law.