FIRM RAMNATH RAMCHANDER Vs. FIRM BHAGATRAM AND CO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a first appeal by the defendants against the decree dated 14th of August, 1951 for an amount of Rs. 9,500/3/-passed by the Civil Judge, Kishangarh against them and in favour of the plaintiffs-respondents and the sole point for determination is whether the plaintiffs-respondents were rightly given by the trial court the benefit under section 14 of the Limitation Act to bring within time their suit which was admittedly presented beyond the prescribed period of Limitation. The relevant facts may very shortly be stated as follows:--

(2.) Thereafter, the plaintiffs filed the present suit out of which this appeal arises for an amount of Rs. 11,454/15/-in the court of the District Judge, Kishangarh, which was ultimately tried by the Senior Civil Judge. The defendants raised various pleas including that of limitation. The plea of the defendants relating to limitation was decided on 23rd of August, 1950 against the defendants. The trial court relied upon Chittaranjan Guha v. Parul Rani Nandi AIR 1946 Cal 112 and observed that the question whether parties can by an agreement restrict the choice of forum was not free from doubt and consequently the plaintiffs' action in filing the suit in the Beawar court cannot be said to be clearly against law. It, therefore, gave benefit of doubt to the plaintiffs respondents. Ultimately, the suit was decreed on, 14th of August, 1951. The defendants thereupon filed the present appeal and simply raised the question of limitation as stated above. The appeal was heard by a Division Bench of this Court consisting of Ranawat and Sharma JJ. OB 26th of March, 1958. Before that Bench, it was argued that the Beawar court being a foreign court in 1944 was not a court to which the Kishangarh State Limitation Act, 1944 could be applied and, therefore, the plaintiffs could not get the benefit of the pendency of suit in that court. The respondents answered this contention by pleading that the Beawar court could not be regarded as a foreign court. The Division Bench formulated the following question and referred it to a Full Bench of this Court: (Since reported in AIR 1959 Raj 149):

(3.) The Full Bench after hearing the parties at length divided the question in the following two parts:-