Karnataka High Court: While delivering the judgment in an appeal filed under S. 96 of CPC against the order of the Civil Judge, a two Judge Bench comprising of Jayant Patel, J. and B.A. Patil, J. set aside the impugned order and remanded the matter back to the lower Court for fresh adjudication.
The appellant-plaintiff had filed a recovery suit against the defendant-respondent. The defendant filed an application under Order VII Rule 11 (d) of CPC by contending that the suit was barred by limitation under Article 18 of the Limitation Act. The said application was contested by the plaintiff by filing the objections. The lower court rejected the objections of the plaintiff and consequently the recovery suit filed by the plaintiff was also rejected.
Learned counsel for the appellant contended that Article 18 was not applicable to the present case. The Courts below did not properly interpret S. 15 (2) of CPC. While computing the period of limitation, the period of legal notice taken under S. 80 of CPC ought to have been excluded.
The Court perused S. 15 of CPC which deals with exclusion of time in certain cases and held that while computing the period of limitation, the period of notice has to be mandatorily excluded, provided if the legal notice is issued within the limitation period for filing the suit. The Court also referred to the Apex Court decision reported in (2012) 1 SCC 590 which laid down the same preposition of law.
It was held that the Courts below did not give proper application of mind to the contentions raised by the plaintiff and therefore the order passed by them was not maintainable. Accordingly, the impugned order was set aside and the matter was remanded back to the lower Court for fresh adjudication. [BSCPL Infrastructure Ltd. v. Government of Karnataka, R.F.A. No. 982/2016, dated September 7, 2017]