Singapore legislation
Section 51
Section 51
Examination and impounding of instruments
(1)
Every person having by law or consent of parties authority to receive evidence, and every public officer or officer of a statutory body, before whom any instrument, chargeable in his or her opinion with duty, is produced or comes in the performance of his or her functions, must, if it appears to him or her that such instrument is not duly stamped, impound the same.
(2)
For the purpose of subsection (1), every such person must examine every instrument so chargeable and so produced or coming before the person 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)
Subsection (1) does not apply to —
a police officer; or
such other public officer or officer of a statutory body as the Minister may by order in the Gazette exempt from that subsection.
(4)
Nothing in this section is deemed to require any Magistrate or Judge of a criminal court to examine or impound, if he or she does not think fit to do so, any instrument coming before him or her in the course of any criminal proceeding.
(5)
In the case of a Supreme Court Judge, the duty of examining and impounding any instrument under this section is to be performed by the Registrar or Deputy Registrar.