On 21/05/2013,
you requested for the version in force on 21/05/2013
incorporating all amendments published on or before 21/05/2013.
The closest version currently available is that of 01/04/2006.
PART VII
INSTRUMENTS NOT DULY STAMPED
51.
—(1) Every person having by law or consent of parties authority to receive evidence, and every person in charge of a public office, except a police officer, 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 the purpose of subsection (1), 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 description required by the law in force in Singapore when such instrument was executed or first executed.
(3) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to require any Magistrate or Judge of a criminal court to examine or impound, if he does not think fit to do so, any instrument coming before him in the course of any criminal proceeding.
(4) In the case of a Judge of the Supreme Court, the duty of examining and impounding any instrument under this section shall be performed by the Registrar or Deputy Registrar.
52.
—(1) Subject to this section, no instrument chargeable with duty shall be admitted in evidence for any purpose by any person having by law or consent of parties authority to receive evidence, or shall be acted upon, registered or authenticated by any such person or by any public officer, unless the instrument is duly stamped.
(2) Any instrument referred to in subsection (1) shall, subject to all just exceptions, be admitted in evidence on payment of the duty and the penalty, if any, chargeable in respect thereof under section 46.
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(3) When a contract or agreement of any kind is effected by correspondence consisting of 2 or more letters and any one of the letters bears the proper stamp, the contract or agreement shall be deemed to be duly stamped.
(4) Nothing in this section shall prevent the admission of any instrument in evidence —
(a)
in any criminal court; or
(b)
in any court when the instrument has been executed by or on behalf of the Government, or of any other government or country, or where it bears the certificate of the Commissioner as provided by this Act.
53.
—(1) When the person impounding an instrument under section 51 has by law or consent of parties authority to receive evidence and admits the instrument in evidence on payment of duty and penalty, if any, he shall, as soon as may be convenient, send the instrument, together with the amount of the duty and penalty, if any, paid in respect thereof, to the Commissioner.
(1A) The Commissioner shall stamp the instrument in accordance with section 46 and shall return it to the person who sent it to him.
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(2) In every other case in which an instrument is impounded under section 51, the person impounding the instrument shall send it immediately to the Commissioner.
(3) The Commissioner, on payment of the duty and penalty, if any, chargeable in respect thereof under section 46, shall stamp the instrument and shall return it to the person who sent it to him, but if such duty and penalty, if any, is not paid, he shall retain the instrument.
[26/96]
Special provision as to unstamped receipts
54. [Repealed by Act 26 of 1996]
55.
—(1) When any duty or penalty has been paid in respect of any instrument by any person, and by agreement or under the provisions of this Act or of any other law in force at the time when the instrument was executed or first executed some other person was liable to pay the duty on the instrument, the first-mentioned person shall be entitled to recover from that other person the amount of the duty or penalty so paid.
(2) For the purpose of any recovery referred to in subsection (1), any certificate granted in respect of the instrument by the Commissioner shall be conclusive evidence as to the amount of the duty and penalty paid and the person by whom they were paid.
56. The liability of any person to pay the full amount of duty or penalty due on any instrument shall not be affected by any erroneous or under assessment of that duty or penalty or the failure to assess that duty or penalty by the Commissioner, and the correct amount of duty or penalty due on the instrument shall be recoverable by the Commissioner.