What do you understand by registration of documents? State the effect of non-registration of documents required to be registered.

Registration means recording of the contents of a document with a Registering Officer and preservation of copies of the original document. Registration of a document inter alia, ensures its proper preservation and record. Section 49 of the Act provides that no document required by Section 17 or by any provision of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 to be registered shall: affect any immovable property comprised therein; or confer any power to adopt; or be received as evidence of any transaction affecting such property or conferring such power unless it has been registered. Section 49 of the Registration Act, 1908 is mandatory, and a document which is required to be registered cannot be received in evidence as affecting immovable property. An unregistered document which comes within Section 17 cannot be used in any legal proceeding to bring out indirectly the effect which it would have if registered. However, as provided in Section 49, proviso, an unregistered document affecting immovable property and required by this Act or the Transfer of property Act, 1882 to be registered may be received as evidence of a contract in a suit for specific performance or as evidence of part performance of a contract for the purposes of Section 53A of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 or as evidence of any collateral transaction not to be effective by registered instrument.