For Logic let A be a Finance Company, B is a person who has availed a loan & defaulted. A initates arbitration in Chennai and gets an award in Chennai in say 2008. The award is stamped as per the Stamp Duties Act of Tamil Nadu in 2008. It goes for execution in the State of Karnataka in 2016. This is the first execution petition filed in Karnataka. The court demands Stamp duty as per the laws in Karnataka.
Now the issue is When is the Stamp Duty's Act to be referred (year). In 2008 or in 2016. There are different rates in 2008 and 2016 on the stamp duty payable for arbitration awards. Obiously 2016 is lower and 2008 is abnormally high.
The stamp duties act says
"19. Payment of duty on certain instruments liable to increased duty in the 1[State of Karnataka]1.- Where any instrument of the nature described in any article in the Schedule and relating to any property situate or to any matter or thing done or to be done in the 1[State of Karnataka]1 is executed out of the said State and subsequently received in the said State,— 1. Adapted by the Karnataka Adaptations of Laws Order, 1973 w.e.f. 1.11.1973. (a) the amount of duty chargeable on such instrument shall be the amount of duty chargeable under the Schedule on a document of the like descripttion executed in the 1[State of Karnataka]1 less the amount of duty, if any, already paid on such instrument in any other State in India, 1. Adapted by the Karnataka Adaptations of Laws Order, 1973 w.e.f. 1.11.1973. (b) and in addition to the stamps, if any, already affixed thereto, such instrument shall be stamped with the stamps necessary for the payment of the duty chargeable on it under clause (a) of this section, in the same manner and at the same time and by the same persons as though such instrument were an instrument received in the 1[State of Karnataka]1 for the first time at the time when it became chargeable with the higher duty, and
"33. Examination and impounding of instruments.- (1) Every person having by law or consent of parties authority to receive evidence, and every person in charge of a public office, except an officer of police, before whom any instrument, chargeable in his opinion, with duty, is produced or comes in the performance of his functions, shall, if it appears to him that such instrument is not duly stamped, impound the same. (2) For that purpose every such person shall examine every instrument so chargeable and so produced or coming before him, in order to ascertain whether it is stamped with a stamp of the value and descripttion required by the law in force in the 1[State of Karnataka]1 when such instrument was executed or first executed:"
