READ THIS BEFORE SIGNING
This deed hands your signature to another person. Everything the Attorney does within the powers below binds you exactly as if you had done it yourself.
This deed carries NO power to sell immovable property. The Attorney cannot sell, agree to sell, mortgage, gift, exchange, partition, relinquish or long-lease any land, house, plot or flat of yours, cannot take an earnest money or a sale advance, and cannot hand possession to a buyer or a financier. That is deliberate. It is the reason this deed is cheap to stamp and safe to leave in the country while you are not in it. Do not let anyone add a sale power to it by hand.
There is exactly one sale power this deed can ever carry, and it is not over property. If — and only if — you choose the second option under "Shares, securities and mutual funds", the Attorney may buy and sell shares, units and securities in your existing accounts, with every rupee of the proceeds credited to your own bank account and no security put into the Attorney's name. If you did not choose that option, this deed authorises no sale of anything at all.
Even a Mukhtiarnama that did grant a power to sell land would transfer nothing. In Suraj Lamp & Industries Ltd. v. State of Haryana, decided on 11 October 2011 and reported at (2012) 1 SCC 656, the Supreme Court held that the sale-agreement, general-power-of-attorney and will method of transferring immovable property conveys no title, and that title passes only under a duly stamped and registered deed of conveyance. Nobody should buy from, or lend against, a power of attorney treated as though it were a sale deed.
Never sign a blank page or a blank stamp paper. Keep the original in your own custody and give the Attorney an attested copy unless the original is genuinely needed at a counter. Put an expiry date on it. Revoke it in writing the day it is no longer needed.
THIS DEED OF GENERAL POWER OF ATTORNEY (MUKHTIARNAMA-E-AAM) is executed on 1 April 2026 at Vancouver, Canada, and relates to my affairs and to my property situated in Punjab.
1.1 The Principal — Gurmeet Singh Sandhu, son of Sardar Joginder Singh, son of Sardar Bachan Singh, aged 25,000 years, resident of X, identified by Indian passport Z1234567 (referred to in this deed as "the Principal", "I", "me" and "my").
1.2 The Attorney — Harpreet Singh Sandhu, son of Sardar Joginder Singh, aged 25,000 years, resident of X, identified by Aadhaar-linked PAN AACPS5678L. Relationship to me: Spouse.
1.3 Second Attorney — X, X, aged 25,000 years, resident of X, is appointed together with the person named in clause 1.2. In this deed "the Attorney" means each of them, and the two of them are to act in the manner I have recorded here and in no other: Both attorneys must act jointly; neither of them may act alone.
1.4 One Principal, and one only. This deed is executed by one person, for that person's own rights, and it can carry no more. Where land, a house or a plot is held jointly — and in the Doaba most ancestral khewats are — every co-sharer who wants an attorney must execute a separate Mukhtiarnama of their own. A co-sharer who has not signed a deed is not bound by this one, and nothing done under this deed touches that co-sharer's share.
2.1 I execute this deed of my own free will, without coercion, fraud or undue influence, and after understanding its effect. I am of sound mind, and my age is the figure written against my name in clause 1.1. Section 183 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 permits only a person who has attained the age of majority according to the law to which he is subject, and who is of sound mind, to employ an agent. If the age written in clause 1.1 is under eighteen, this deed creates no agency whatever and must not be signed; a guardian dealing with a minor's property needs separate advice and, for immovable property, the permission of the competent court.
2.2 I am unable, or find it inconvenient, to attend personally to the matters described in this deed. In particular: I have been employed in Canada since 2011 and cannot attend personally to the land and the house at Nurmahal.
2.3 I ordinarily reside in India and I am executing this deed in India, and it is being stamped before or at the time of execution.
2.4 I therefore nominate, constitute and appoint the Attorney to be my true and lawful attorney — mera sacha te kanooni mukhtiar — to do in my name and on my behalf only the acts set out under the headings "Powers granted" and "Immovable property — management only", subject to the limits set out under the headings "What this deed does not do", "Immovable property — management only" and "Absolute limits, and the exclusion of the power to sell immovable property".
3.1 This deed transfers nothing. It creates an agency and no more. It does not sell, convey, assign, gift or otherwise transfer any interest in any property of mine to the Attorney or to anybody else, and no person may treat it, or any receipt or agreement produced with it, as a conveyance. Following Suraj Lamp & Industries Ltd. v. State of Haryana, (2012) 1 SCC 656, an interest in immovable property passes only under a duly stamped and registered instrument of transfer.
3.2 Nothing in this deed gives the Attorney any beneficial interest in any asset of mine. The Attorney holds any money, document, key or title paper of mine that comes into the Attorney's hands for me alone, as a mere custodian.
3.3 The Attorney cannot do anything that I could not lawfully do myself, and has no authority in relation to any asset greater than my own share or right in it. Where I hold land jointly with others, the Attorney's authority extends to my share alone and to nothing belonging to any other co-sharer.
3.4 Every act must be done in my name and expressed to be so. The Attorney shall sign as: "Gurmeet Singh Sandhu, by Harpreet Singh Sandhu, constituted attorney", and the Second Attorney shall sign as: "Gurmeet Singh Sandhu, by X, constituted attorney"; where both are required to act jointly, each shall sign in that form on the same instrument. A signature by the Attorney in the Attorney's own name alone does not bind me.
3.5 No entry in the Attorney's own name. The Attorney has no authority to procure, consent to or acquiesce in any mutation, khata, allotment, re-allotment or record entry that shows the Attorney, or any relative or associate of the Attorney, as the owner, allottee or person in possession of any property of mine. Every entry the Attorney applies for must continue to show me as the owner.
3.6 This deed does not replace the forms and formalities of any bank, Sub-Registrar, Tehsildar, Estate Office, depository, court or government office. It supports them.
4.1 I authorise the Attorney to do the following in my name, and nothing beyond them:
Everyday and administrative matters — to receive, open and reply to letters and communications addressed to me, to collect documents, certificates, cards and parcels on my behalf, to pay bills, land revenue, house tax, ground rent, maintenance and statutory dues out of funds I make available, and to sign the applications, receipts, acknowledgements and know-your-customer forms those acts require.
Banking — to operate my existing bank accounts in India, including my NRO account, sign and countersign cheques, drafts and instructions, deposit and withdraw money, present and collect cheques, transfer funds between my own accounts, and obtain statements, passbooks and certificates — but not to open or close any account, not to place or break fixed deposits, not to borrow, and not to repatriate any money out of India. The Attorney must first complete the bank's own mandate, verification and know-your-customer formalities; this deed does not oblige any bank to act on it. Money in an NRE, NRO or FCNR(B) account remains subject to the conditions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 and the RBI Master Directions made under it, and no power in this deed authorises the Attorney to remit any money out of India.
Revenue, estate and municipal offices — to represent me before the Halqa Patwari, the Field Kanungo, the Naib Tehsildar and the Tehsildar as Assistant Collectors of the second grade, and before the Collector, the Commissioner and the Financial Commissioner (Revenue), to report an acquisition of right to the patwari and to apply for, pursue, object to and seek correction of any mutation (intiqal) under sections 34 to 37 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887, to inspect the jamabandi, the roznamcha and the register of mutations and to obtain a certified fard or nakal from the Fard Kendra or the Sewa Kendra, to apply for a Fard Badar where an entry is wrong, to appear at a girdawari, to pay the land revenue and every other due assessed on my holding, and to deal with the municipal, electricity, water and sewerage authorities in respect of house tax, assessment, connections and transfers of connections. In Punjab the record is inspected free at https://jamabandi.punjab.gov.in/ and the certified fard or nakal is issued at the tehsil counter; in Chandigarh the Estate Officer's allotment file is the record and there is no jamabandi for a sector property, though the villages and the lal dora and phirni areas within the Union Territory are dealt with on a fard and a Naib Tehsildar's report in the ordinary way.
Income tax and goods and services tax — to represent me before the income-tax authorities, to sign, verify and file my returns of income, forms, statements, appeals, replies and rectification applications, to apply for a certificate for deduction of tax at a lower rate or at nil rate on sums payable to me, to respond to notices and attend assessment and appellate proceedings, and to receive any refund only into my own bank account. The e-filing portal runs its own authorised-representative mechanism and that mechanism does not operate on this deed; the Attorney has to be added on the portal separately, and a deductor, registrar or depository may require its own form as well.
Courts, revenue courts, rent forums and complaints — to appear and act for me before any civil court, revenue court, tribunal, forum, arbitrator, commission or authority, and before the Rent Controller, the Rent Controller-cum-Civil Judge (Junior Division) and any Rent Authority, Rent Court or Rent Tribunal constituted under the rent legislation for the time being in force where the property lies, to sign and verify plaints, written statements, petitions, applications, appeals and affidavits, to engage advocates and sign vakalatnamas, to give evidence of facts within the Attorney's own knowledge, to lodge a written complaint with the police including with a notified NRI police station of the Punjab Police NRI Wing, to file and pursue a complaint before the Punjab State Commission for Non-Resident Indians, and to receive money decreed or awarded in my favour into my own bank account and give a valid discharge for it. The Attorney may depose only to facts within the Attorney's own personal knowledge, and a separate vakalatnama must be filed for any advocate engaged. The Punjab State Commission for Non-Resident Indians, constituted under the Punjab State Commission for Non-resident Indians Act, 2011 (Punjab Act No. 33 of 2011, notified in the Punjab Gazette on 29 November 2011), has the powers of a civil court for summoning witnesses, taking evidence and requisitioning records, but what it issues is a recommendation and it is not binding on the police or on the administration; it is not a substitute for a suit.
Business — to represent me in my proprietary business, sign purchase orders, invoices, delivery challans and contracts of supply or service in the ordinary course of that business, and deal with its licences, registrations and renewals.