BABU RAMESHWAR PRASAD SINGH Vs. MANGAR KAHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are applications presented by the plaintiffs who instituted on September 14, 1933, suits for produce rent in respect of holdings of their tenants. Rents were claimed for the years 1339, 1340, 1341 and 1342. The Courts below have held that the suit was within time in respect of the rents of 1311 and 1342, the cause of action for which arose in September 1934 a September, 1935, respectively, but as regards the claim for the rents of 1339 and 1340 the limitation ran from Bhado 30, that is to say, September 14,1932, a September, 4, 1933, respectively; and this part of the claim was barred by Section 184, Bihar Tenancy Act, read with Schedule III, Art. 2 (b) (ii), which prescribes a period of limitation of one year from the last day of the agricultural year in which the arrear fell due.

(2.) Under the Bengal Tenancy Act as it stood until the passing of the amendments of 1934, the period of limitation for such a suit was three years from the last date of the agricultural year, and no doubt had the Amending Act not been passed, the suits would have been within time. It is argued that the new provision creating a shorter period of limitation does not apply to this suit, the cause of action for which arose before the passing of the Act. In support of this contention reliance is placed on Manjuri Bibi V/s. Akkel Mahmud 17 C.W.N. 889 : 19 Ind. Cas. 793 : 17 C.L.J. 316. In that case the Calcutta High Court examined an amending statute which created a shorter period of limitation governing certain classes of suits for dispossession. There was a difference of opinion among the Judges, but it was eventually decided that the new shorter and special period of limitation did not apply to suits instituted after the commencement of the amending Act in respect of causes of action which arose before the amending Act came into force. This decision has since been generally regarded as a leading case, and Mr. B.C. Sinha for the petitioners has asked me to apply and follow it in these applications. It is necessary, therefore, to examine the reasoning on which the above decision was based. Mookerjee, J. pointed out that the Eastern Bengal and Assam Tenancy Amendment Act of 1908 became law on June 10, 1903, and came into operation on that very date. Hence it was argued that the Legislature could never have intended the new provision of limitation to apply to causes of action which hid accrued before the new statute became law, because the effect would be to extinguish forthwith all causes of action in existence and enforceable in a Court of Justice at the time when the statute came into operation. The learned Judge said: To hold that this amended provision applies to suits in respect of dispossession, which, has taken place more than two years before the enactment of the new law, is to maintain the position that the Legislature intended the litigant to accomplish what is impossible in the nature of thing for him to do; in other words, to prescrible that his rights are forthwith extinguished without previous notice and without opportunity afforded to him to escape the operation of the new law.

(3.) The learned Judge continued : In my opinion, the cardinal and fundamental point in the case before me is that the Eastern Bengal and Assam Tenancy A mending Act of 1908 came into operation the very moment it became law, consequently, if it were taken to effect pre-existing causes of action, the effect would be absolutely to bar at once all actions where the cause of action had accrued more than the limited time before the statute was passed.