State Governments are increasingly conscious of stamp duty as a revenue source that is growing in every state. This is largely due to boom in realty market, rationalization of stamp duty rates, awareness building among public / citizens to get registration of documents from legal safety point of view and regular/yearly revision of market rate of properties by State Governments.
The most common method of collecting stamp duty is through sale of stamp papers and special adhesive stamps. These stamp papers and stamps are printed at Government Security Press and supplied to various state stamps departments across the country. The system has all disadvantages relating to logistic and security.
After the Telgi scam relating to circulation of fraudulent stamps and stamp papers, the Government of India and State Government has been looking for an alternative method of stamp duty collection in order to prevent the paper and process related fraudulent
practices, secured and reliable collection mechanism and storage and retrieval of stamping data to facilitate easy verification and generation of MIS reports.
Existing scenarios
Presently, the following modes of stamp duty payment are prevalent in most states:
1. Stamp Papers (Judicial & Non Judicial) and Special Adhesive Stamps (This is the most commonly used method of paying stamp duty)
2. Depositing duty in Stamps and Registration Department,
3. Challans in designated banks
4. Franking on document
The Forbes estamping Process
The Forbes e-Stamping system/model is based on highly secure, tamper proof and reliable collection mechanism, evidencing payment of government duties on document through Secured Electronic Unit, enabling each stake holder to verify/validate and provide
various MIS reports.