Finally I found some time to write about the new E-Stamping technique that has been introduced on a pilot basis in Bengaluru for preparing legal agreements for sale and rental of properties and many other instruments. The entire article detailing this is available here.
So one would like to know what exactly is the difference between the old method and the new method of stampings. And why in the first place is the stamp paper required itself. For starters, the stamp paper is a document that is franked with the government seal on the top of the page, which in essence signifies the legality of a certain instrumental transaction like for eg., that involving a sale or agreement etc. This used to be supplied by the government to the registrar’s offices and some stipulated banks like State Bank of Mysore used to sell it to customers. This was until a few days back. Now no more do these banks stock these bond papers as they are called. And you may not even get it in the registrar’s offices anymore.
Firstly one has to understand that the government of Karnataka has now shifted over to the e-stamping mechanism which in essence means that these franked papers are no more used from now on. Earlier there were many touts who used to procure these bond papers and make a killing by selling them at a premium to customers. This led to mega scams like the Telgi stamp paper scam, more about which you can read here and understand. This scam alone led to a 30000 crore rupee loss to the government of Karnataka which is much more than any politician even could amass in terms of ill gotten wealth.
The government of Karnataka finally woke up and has ushered in an e-stamping mechanism now whereby a company by name Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited are the official vendors of E-stamps from now on. This essentially means that you go to them now, put in all details of why you need an e-franked bond paper, give your address details, contact details, PAN numbers, property details, rental / sale details, and sale/rental value details etc. There are a multitude of things for which this mechanism can be used from now on. To know more about this company and the things you can use their services for, click here and to get the list of things you can use the estamps, click here.
Old and new Stamp paper formats – an illustration
The best thing about this approach is that SHCIL as a company will take care of taking money from you for the bond papers and stamps related instruments, and directly remit it to the government and they will create a unique franking with a unique ID generated for each transaction which is accountable at any time and can be traced to the participating parties always with the PAN numbers. And hopefully the Telgis of the new era might have to come up with something more sophisticated than this to cheat the government. So before I end this post, I am proud to say I used this method and feel more happy, satisfied and confident that my money is legitimately going to the government instead of to a tout.
The directions to the office of SHCIL I went to is in Koramangala is given in a map here for reference sake. They work between 10am and 5pm only between Monday and Friday and are closed for the two weekend days.
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