GAJADHAR PRASAD Vs. DHARMA NAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application in civil revision by a defendant against a Small Cause Court decree. The plaintiff sued for arrears of salary at Rupees. 20 per mensem from 10 April 1930 to 31 August 1931. The defendant admitted that the plaintiff was in his service for this period at this salary, but he pleaded payment to the plaintiff, and further that the claim would be time-barred. The lower Court held, that payment had not been made and that the suit was not time-barred. It held that the suit was governed by Art. 102, Limitation Act, that the period of limitation ran from the date when the wages accrued, that the plaintiff was not paid regularly, hence it cannot be said that the wages accrued on any particular date, and that following a ruling in E. Young V/s. D. MacCorkindale (1871) 19 W.R. 159, plaintiff's wages would be due on the date on which he left the defendant's service, and that the period of limitation - three years - ran from that date. That ruling was given at a time when a former Limitation Act (9 of 1871) was in force. In the schedule of that. Act there is no article corresponding to Art. 102. Consequently the Court had to go to other consideration for limitation. The suit was in regard to various matters for partnership and accounts and at the end of the judgment there was the observation: Any wages that might be due by MacCorkindale to the plaintiff would be due to him when he left the service on 15 May 1868, and any suit for these wages must, in the absence, of any subsequent accounts stated and settled between the parties, have been brought within three years from 15 May 1868. Therefore,, taking it that the plaint was presented, and properly presented, on 29 July 1871, we still think that the suit is barred by limitation.

(2.) This ruling did not hold that the claim for wages was within time, but it held that it was time-barred in any case because the service had terminated more than three years before the suit. I am clearly of opinion that under the present Limitation Act, Art. 102 lays down that wages not otherwise expressly provided for in the schedule must be taken to be subject to a time which begins to run from the time when the wages accrue due. In the present case the plaint admits that the wages are monthly wages and therefore in law the wages accrue and become due on the final day of the month. The suit was brought on 30 June 1934. The earliest period within limitation would be 30 June 1931, and wages for the month of June 1931 are within time, but not any previous wages. Similarly the wages for July due on 31 July, and the wages for August due on 31 August 1931, are within time. A period therefore of three months wages at Rs. 20 per mensem total Rs. 60 is within time. The remainder of the claim of Rs. 120 wages was not within time. The argument was made that as the point urged in revision is one of limitation there should be no interference by this Court. For the plaintiff reference was made to Sarman Lal V/s. Khuban (1895) 17 All. 422, where the head- note says: It is no ground for revision under Section 25 of Act 9 of 1887, that the Court whose order it is sought to revise may have come to an erroneous decision on a point of limitation.

(3.) But the final sentence in the ruling is: We therefore in our discretion refuse to try in revision, and to re-open the questions of law and fact which have in the exercise of its jurisdiction been decided upon evidence by a Court whose decision upon such a point has been made final by law.