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Harshit Harish Jain and Anr. v. The State of Maharashtra and Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2025 INSC 104Decided 24 Jan 2025
C.A. No.-001002-001002 - 2025 (arising out of SLP (C) No. 21778 of 2024)
Justice Vikram Nath · Justice Sanjay Karol · Justice Sandeep Mehta

Background

The appellants had agreed to buy a flat in a Mumbai housing project in 2014 and paid stamp duty on the agreement. When the developer could not hand over possession on time, the buyers cancelled the deal through a cancellation deed executed on 17.03.2015 but registered only on 28.04.2015: just after a legal amendment cut the window for claiming a stamp duty refund from two years to six months. The Maharashtra revenue authority first granted the refund, then recalled its own order and rejected the claim as time-barred; the Bombay High Court upheld that rejection.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the buyers' right to claim a refund accrued on the date the cancellation deed was executed (17.03.2015), before the amendment took effect, so the older, more generous two-year limitation period applied, not the new six-month one. Relying on established principles, the Court held that a law shortening a limitation period cannot retrospectively wipe out a right that had already accrued under the earlier, longer period. It further held that the revenue authority had no statutory power to review or recall its own final order, so its second decision rejecting the refund was invalid. The refund was restored, along with 6% annual interest for the delay.

Lesson Learnt

When a government changes the law to shorten a filing deadline, it generally cannot apply the shorter deadline to a right you had already earned under the older rule; and a government authority cannot simply reverse its own earlier decision unless a law specifically gives it the power to do so.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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