UDUPPU PYLEE Vs. VARKKI MATHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision is directed against an order of the learned District Munsiff of Ernakulam holding that O. S. 757 of 1953 on his file is not barred by limitation. The suit is to enforce registration of a sale deed which the defendant to the action, petitioner herein, is alleged to have executed in favour of the plaintiff, the opposite party. The document bears the date 14. 8. 1950 and it was presented for registration before the Sub-Registrar of Mulanthuruthy by the plaintiff on 18. 8. 1950. The defendant did not appear to admit the execution and at the plaintiff's instance the Sub-Registrar issued notice to the defendant to appear before him and admit the document. On 19. 8. 1950, the defendant appeared and gave a sworn statement before the sub-Registrar to the effect that he had not executed the sale deed. Thereupon the Sub-Registrar passed an order refusing registration. Against that order an application (Application XI of 1950) was made before the District Registrar under S. 63 of the Cochin Registration Act (V of 1084) to establish the plaintiff's right to have the document registered. After due enquiry the district Registrar dismissed that application on 5. 9. 1952. Thereupon the plaintiff brought the present suit for a decree directing the document to be registered according to law. It was instituted on 13. 10. 1952.

(2.) THE defendant, besides disputing the execution of the sale deed, also contended that the suit was barred by time. THE issue raised in the suit with reference to the plea of limitation was, at the instance of the defendant heard preliminarily and the learned District Munsiff negatived the plea. Hence the revision by the defendant.

(3.) NOR can the order be supported on general principles. When the learned District Munsiff said that the plaintiff had a vested right to have the time occupied in obtaining a copy of the order excluded in computing the period of limitation he overlooked the distinction between a right of action and the right of an action being brought within a particular time or conducted in particular way. No suitor has any vested right in a rule of procedure. Sankaranarayana Panicker v. Narayana Panicker 1952 K. L. T. 339. The general principle is that the law of limitation that is applicable to a suit is that law in force at the time, when the suit was instituted. To quote from the judgment of Benson and Sundra Iyer, JJ. , in Ramakrishna Chetty v. Subbharaya iyer (1913) 24 M. L. J. 54: "the period of limitation that the party is entitled to have is that prescribed by the statute then in force, whether it be shorter or longer than that provided in a previous statute repealed by it. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The reason of the rule is that limitation is a branch of the law of procedure and is only a condition annexed to the enforcement of a substantive right in a court of law and does not affect the right itself. And there is no injustice in requiring a person having a substantive right to seek the enforcement of it in a court of law within such time as the legislature may think fit from time to time to prescribe".