RAMAKRISHNAYYA Vs. STATE OF MYSORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by a plaintiff whose suit for the recovery of a sum of Rs. 88,000 as damages for breach of contract was dismissed by the Civil Judge on the ground that it was a time barred sult. It is undisputed that the cause of action for the suit arose on August 3, 1948, and that the suit was instituted in the Court below only on November 23, 1969. So, if nothing else could be said about it, the suit instituted more than three years after the cause of action arose was clearly barred by limitation, not having been brought within the period of three years prescribed by Article 116 of Schedule 1 to the Limitation Act, 1908

(2.) The contention of the plaintiff was that the suit was saved by Section 14 of the Limitation Act since between 1950 and 1959 the plaintiff was prosecuting with due diligence another suit in the High Court of Bombay on the original side for identical relief. It was stated that that suit in the High Court of Bombay was withdrawn on November 1, 1915, on the ground that there was a defect of jurisdiction which constituted an impediment to the trial of that suit by that High Court.

(3.) Mr. Ramachandra on behalf of the plaintiff produced before us a communication addressed to the plaintiff on August 30, 1958, by the High Court of Bombay in which it was stated that no final order had yet been drawn by the concerned attorneys in the suit which was instituted in the High Court of Bombay and that for that reason a certified copy of that final order could not be granted. Mr. Ramachandra's submission was that the withdrawal of the suit on November 1, 1955, did not really end in a withdrawal and that the matter must still be deemed to be pending in the High Court of Bombay since the concerned attorneys had not drawn up the final order, which, under the rules of the original side of the High Court of Bombay was obligatory