Srivathsan (owner) 18 September 2009

Legality of a printed receipt

Is it legally mandated that a printed/written signed & stamped (if amt > 5000) is required whenever a cash/cheq transaction takes place?

What if the firm is genuine, maintains all referable audit trail of all the transactions online which the payor can verify anytime?

Why is revenue stamp required? How is this impacted in case of online payments? In no case a receipt is issued, does a company pay stamp fee separately?

Is issual of receipt only an optional token of acknowledgement or is it legally a must?

What are the implications if the company does not issue a physical receipt for a physical transaction but keeps an online record and sends electronic receipt through mail?

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3 Replies

G.Padmanabhan (Advocate) 24 September 2009

Payment of stamp duty is mandated by Indian Stamp Act, and the quantum of stamp duty various from state to state. If revenue stamp is not affixed and not cancelled by way of payee signing across it in respect of money transactions >Rs.5000, then such receipt can not be produced in evidence in a court of law. Authorities, other than courts, are mandated by the said act to impound such unstamped documents and send them to the concerned district collectors for collection of proper stamp duty with penalty.

G.Padmanabhan (Advocate) 24 September 2009

please insert the words Authorities, other than courts, to whom such unstampted documents are poduced, are mandated....etc.

Srivathsan (owner) 24 September 2009

Thank you sir,

But for online transactions no manual stamped receipt is issued. Only an online receipt is issued. Is this illegal then? Is this not address in cyber law?

If this is admissible then why should this not be replicated for physical transactions where cheque/cash is transferred from one person to another?