(1) Every person having by law or consent of parties authority to receive evidence, and every person in charge of a public office, except an Officer of Police, before whom any instrument, chargeable in his opinion, with duty, is produced or comes in this performance of his functions, shall, if it appears to him that such instrument in no duly stamped, impound the same. 

(2) For that purpose every such person shall examine every instrument so chargeable and so produced or coming before him, in order to ascertain whether it is stamped with a stamp of the value and description required by the law in force in the State when such instrument was executed or first executed:

Provided that (a) nothing herein contained shall be deemed to require any Magistrate or Judge of a Criminal Court to examine or impound, if he does not think fit to do, any instrument coming before him in the course of any proceeding other than proceeding under Chapter XII or Chapter XXXVI of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898;

(b) in the case of a Judge of the High Court, the duty of examining and impounding any instrument under this section may be delegated to such officer as the Court appoints in his behalf.

(3) For the purpose of this section, in cases of doubt, the Government may determine:(a) what offices shall be deemed to be public offices; and

(b) who shall be deemed to be persons in charge of public offices.