8. A deed of sale is a conveyance. A deed of conveyance or other document executed by any person is not an act nor record of an act of any sovereign authority or of any official body or tribunal, or of any public officer, legislative, judicial and executive. Nor is it a public record kept in a State of any private documents. A sale-deed (or any other deed of conveyance) when presented for registration under the Registration Act, is not retained or kept in any public office of a State after registration, but is returned to the person who presented such document for registration, on completion of the process of registration. An original registered document is not therefore a public record kept by a State of a private document. Consequently, a deed of sale or other registered document will not fall under either of the two classes of documents described in section 74, as ‘public documents’. Any document which is not a public document is a private document. We therefore have no hesitation in holding that a registered sale-deed (or any other registered document) is not a public document but a private document.

9. This position is made abundantly clear in Gopal Das v. Shri Thakurji, [AIR 1943 Privy Council 83], wherein the Privy Council considering the question whether a registered receipt is a public document observed thus: “It was contended by Sir Thomas Strangman for the respondents that the receipt comes within para 2 of section 74, Evidence Act, and was a “public document”; hence undersection 65(e) no such foundation is required as in cases coming within clauses (a), (b) and (c) of that section. Their Lordships cannot accept this argument since the original receipt of 1881 is not “a public record of a private document”. The original has to be returned to the party. A similar argument would appear at one time to have had some acceptance in India but it involves a misconstruction of the Evidence Act and Registration Act and later decisions have abandoned it.” (emphasis supplied).

We may also refer to the following passage from Ratanlal’s Law of Evidence (19th Edition-Page 237): “Public document [Clause (e)] — This clause is intended to protect the originals of public records from the danger to which they would be exposed by constant production in evidence. Secondary evidence is admissible in the case of public documents mentioned in section 74. What section 74 provides is that public records kept in any state of private documents are public documents, but private documents of which public records are kept are not in themselves public documents. A registered document, therefore, does not fall under either clause (e) or (f). The entry in the register book is a public document, but the original is a private document.