Summary
The Supreme Court set aside a High Court order which, in second appeal, had remanded a suit for fresh trial on limitation merely because the courts below had not framed a separate issue on it, although both had found the suit, filed seventeen years after the decree sought to be set aside, to be barred by limitation. Under Section 100 CPC the High Court must itself decide the substantial questions it frames; failure to frame a separate issue is not fatal where the parties went to trial knowing the point was in dispute and no prejudice was caused, and under Section 3 of the Limitation Act the court is bound to consider limitation even if not pleaded.
Issues
- Whether the High Court, in a second appeal under Section 100 CPC, was justified in setting aside concurrent findings and remanding the suit to the trial court for a fresh trial on limitation instead of deciding the substantial questions of law it had framed.
- Whether the failure of the trial court and the first appellate court to frame a specific issue on limitation vitiated their findings that the suit was barred by limitation.
- Whether a suit filed in 1982 to set aside a maintenance decree of 1965 and the consequent court-auction sale was barred by limitation when the plaintiffs had been parties to the execution proceedings.
Provisions considered
- Section 100, Code of Civil Procedure, 1908A second appeal lies only on a substantial question of law, which the High Court must formulate under sub-section (4) and then hear and decide under sub-section (5); the proviso permits other questions only for reasons recorded. Following Santosh Hazari, Surat Singh, Mehboob-Ur-Rehman and Ramakrishnan Kadinhipally, the Court held that once a substantial question is framed the High Court must decide it on merits, and that it should not disturb concurrent findings or remand mechanically. The High Court here left the question framed at admission undecided and answered only the additional question by remanding. (¶¶ 11, 12, 12.1, 17, 18, 22, 23)
- Section 3, Limitation Act, 1963Section 3 obliges a court to dismiss a suit instituted after the prescribed period even if limitation is not set up as a defence; relying on V.M. Salgaocar and Manindra Land & Building Corpn., the Court held that every civil court has a bounden duty to examine limitation even without pleadings, and that the trial court had rightly done so here. (¶¶ 15, 20, 22)
- Article 59, Limitation Act, 1963A suit to set aside a decree must be brought within three years; the trial court applied Article 59 to the relief of setting aside the 1965 decree, and the Supreme Court affirmed that the suit brought seventeen years later, with no averment as to when knowledge was acquired, was barred. (¶¶ 15, 16, 23)
- Order VI Rules 4 and 10, Code of Civil Procedure, 1908Where a party relies on fraud or delayed discovery to save limitation, specific particulars must be pleaded; once pleaded, the burden is on that party to prove a plausible reason for the delay, while the opposite party may show prior knowledge. (¶ 20)
Held
- Under Section 100 CPC, once the High Court is satisfied that a second appeal involves a substantial question of law, it must frame that question and finally decide it on merits in accordance with sub-sections (4) and (5); a High Court that leaves the question framed at admission undecided and merely remands the suit for a fresh trial on an additional question, after decades of litigation and with all material before it, acts unsustainably and prolongs the litigation to no purpose. (¶¶ 12, 12.1, 18, 22)
- The object of framing an issue is to identify the material points in dispute; where a point is intrinsically connected to a framed issue and both sides have led evidence and argued it, the court is bound to decide it, and the omission to frame a separate issue is not fatal if the parties went to trial knowing the point was in contest and no prejudice resulted. Evidence without pleadings cannot, however, be used to make out a new case. (¶¶ 19, 21, 22)
- Limitation is generally a mixed question of fact and law, but where the action is brought many years after the right to sue accrued without any pleading explaining the delay or the date of discovery of fraud, it is to be treated as a question of law, which can be raised at any stage; under Section 3 of the Limitation Act the court must examine limitation and dismiss a time-barred suit even if the plea is not taken. (¶ 20)
- Procedural laws, including the CPC and the law of limitation, are the handmaid of justice; the question in any procedural lapse is whether it has caused serious prejudice, and here the failure to frame a separate issue on limitation caused none, the trial court having discharged its duty under Section 3 on the pleadings and evidence. (¶¶ 21, 21.1, 22)
- The plaintiffs' father and later the plaintiffs themselves were parties to the execution proceedings in which the property was sold, the auction purchaser's title was confirmed by court orders and subsequent transfers were registered; having knowingly slept over their rights for seventeen years, they could not later question the sale, and the protection of bona fide purchasers for value and the sanctity of court sales weighed against disturbing such titles. Limitation is a matter of statute and must be strictly enforced, especially where the earlier transaction was within the parties' knowledge. (¶¶ 13, 23)
Result
Appeal allowed; the High Court's judgment in the second appeal set aside; the trial court's judgment and decree dismissing the suit, as affirmed by the first appellate court, restored; parties to bear their own costs throughout; connected applications disposed of.