DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD OF BELGAUM Vs. MOHAMAD MULLA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The only point that arises in these appeals and in the Civil Revision Application No. 4 of 1941 is one of limitation. The appellant, the District School Board of Belgaum, had employed the respondents in the different appeals and in the civil revisional application as teachers and they were being paid on a certain scale. Pursuant to a certain Resolution passed by Government, the Board came to the conclusion that they had been paid more than they were entitled to and, therefore, the Board directed that the respondents should refund the excess payments made, and orders were passed for deducting the excess amount from their pay by monthly instalments. These orders were communicated to the respondents by the end of April, 1937, and the deductions actually started from April 1, 1937. These deductions went on for about twenty months when the respondents obtained legal advice and protested to the Board that these deductions were not legal and they filed the suits in October 1939 for recovering from the Board the amounts already deducted from their salaries and for getting an injunction restraining the Board from making similar deductions in future.

(2.) The point urged before me is that the claim of the respondents is barred except for the amounts deducted within six months of the filing of the suit and the claim for injunction, and this contention is based on the amendment of Act IV of 1923, the Bombay Primary Education Act, which was amended by Act XII of 1938. Act XII of 1938 provided a period of limitation for filing suits against the District Board for anything done, or purporting to have been done, in pursuance of the main Act, and the period of limitation provided was six months from the date of the act complained of. The section also provided that one month's previous notice in writing of the intended action and of the cause thereof had to be given to the Board. Now if this section applies, the claim of the respondents to the extent that it claims a refund of the amounts deducted six months prior to the filing of the suit is clearly out of time.

(3.) Laws of limitation are procedural laws and the general principle is that procedural laws have a retrospective effect because no person has a vested right in procedure. The Privy Council in two cases, [Lala Soni Ram V. Kanhaiya Lal (1913) L.R. 40 I.A. 74 and Masjid Shahid Ganj Mosque V/s. Shiromani Gurdwara Purbandhak Committee, Amritsar (1940) L.R. 67 I.A. 251 has laid down that the law of limitation applicable to a suit or proceeding is the law in force at the date of the institution of the suit unless there is some distinct provision to the contrary; and therefore, as Act XII of 1938 was in force at the date when the respondents suit was filed, that law of limitation has got to be given effect to, and under the provisions of that Act, the claim of the respondents to the extent that I have indicated would be barred by limitation.