SHANTARAM SHANKAR CHOBHE Vs. CHINTAMANRAO BHALCHANDRA PATWARDHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiff in this action is the Chief of Kurundwad State, and he is suing as a minor. THE cause of action for the suit admittedly arose in June, 1926, at which date the defendant owed money to the plaintiff's father. On September 10, 1927, the plaintiff's father died, and his right of suit against the defendant descended upon his son. On September 30, 1927, a letter was written by the defendant to the plaintiff's guardian (maternal uncle) which in my view cannot be regarded in any light other than that of an acknowledgment of liability within the meaning of Section 19 of the Indian Limitation Act. In 1935 the plaintiff brought the present suit. Prima facie it is barred by limitation and the trial Court has dismissed it on that ground. But the lower appellate Court has accepted the plaintiff's contention that Section 6 read with Section 19 of the Indian Limitation Act has the effect of extending the period of limitation (which ordinarily would have been up to three years from the date of the plaintiff's attainment to majority), and the only question which I have to decide in this second appeal by the defendant is whether that view is correct.

(2.) SECTION 6 of the Indian Limitation Act, so far as is material for our present purpose, is as follows : Where a person entitled to institute a suit, ... is, at the time from which the period of limitation is to be reckoned, a minor, ... he may institute the suit ... within the same period after the disability has ceased, as would otherwise have been allowed from the time prescribed therefore in the third column of the first schedule.

(3.) THERE is very little authority upon the point. In Venkataramayyar v. Kothandaramayyar (1889) I.L.R. 13 Mad. 135 it was held that the effect of an acknowledgment under Section 19 of the Act is that the earlier period of limitation already running is not merely extended but actually terminated, so that a new period starts running from the date of the acknowledgment, and therefore any disability existing at the date of the acknowledgment is a disability "at the time from which the period of limitation is to be reckoned" within the meaning of Section 6 of the Act. The same view was taken in Chandrabhan v. Raj Kumar (1932) I.L.R. 54 All. 1019, and the Madras decision was referred to with approval. The two decisions proceed upon exactly the same ground, and the discussion is not appreciably more elaborate than the short summary that I have given.