LAXMAN SWARUP KULSHRESHTHA Vs. SHEELAWATI DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a Defendant's second appeal. It challenges a decree passed by the District Judge Agra dated 15 -4 -75. By that order the learned District Judge dismissed an appeal filed by the Defendant Appellant as barred by time. The question involved in the case is whether the appeal filed by the Appellant was beyond time.

(2.) THE Defendant was a tenant of an accommodation. A suit for ejectment and arrears of rent was filed by the Plaintiff. The suit was decreed on 30th November, 1971. The decree was however, prepared and signed on 10th December 1971. The Appellant filed a memo of appeal on 1st of January 1972. This was however, not accompanied by a copy of the judgment and decree passed by the trial court. It appears that the Appellant applied for the copies of the judgment and decree on the 1st of January 1972. They were ready on 10th of January 1972. The copies were obtained on 14th January 1972 and filed in court on the 15th of January, 1972.

(3.) THE appeal was not time barred and the learned Judge did not correctly address himself on the question of limitation. The Appellant was entitled to the exclusion of the period elapsing between the pronouncement of the judgment and the signing of the decree to counting the period of limitation Section 12(2) of the Limitation Act provides for this benefit. The material part of Section 12(2) runs thus: "In computing the period of limitation - for an appeal...the day on which the Judgment complained of was pronounced and the time requisite for obtaining a copy of the decree...or older appealed from...shall be excluded. Pull effect has to be given to the expression "Time requisite for obtaining a copy of the decree". It is not, restricted to the time actually taken but is wide enough to include all the time properly required. In Lala Balmukand v. Lajwanti Civil Appeal No. 130 of 1968 decided on 1 -4 -75 their lordships of the Supreme Court held that the expression "Time requisite" in the phrase in question means all the time counted from the date of the pronouncement of Judgment (the same being under Order 20 Rule 7 Code of Civil Procedure the date of the decree) which would be properly required for getting a copy of the decree including the time which must ex -necessitus elepse in the circumstances of the particular ease, before a decree is drawn up and signed". If the delay in drawing up the decree was not attributable to any conduct of the Appellant, he was entitled to the exclusion of the entire period between the date of the pronouncement of the Judgment and the date of the signing of the decrees the time requisite for obtaining a copy of the decree. See also Har Bux Singh v. Gram Sabha, Kurmidih, 1970 AWR 536 where L.P. Nigam, J. observed thus: