In a recent judgment, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India has reiterated the settled principle that a suit which is ex-facie barred by limitation cannot survive merely on the argument that limitation is a mixed question of law and fact. The Court set aside the order of the Gujarat High Court which had erroneously restored a time-barred suit on the premise that evidence on limitation ought to have been led.
The Respondent, Shri Hitesh P. Sanghvi, filed Civil Suit No. 1758 of 2017 before the City Civil Court, Ahmedabad seeking a declaration that a Will dated 4th February 2014 and a Codicil dated 20th September 2014 executed by his late father be declared null and void. The Respondent also sought consequential injunctions. The plaint expressly stated that the testator passed away on 21st October 2014 and that the Will and Codicil came to the knowledge of the Plaintiff in the first week of November 2014.
Defendant Nos. 2, 3 and 4 filed applications under Order VII Rule 11(d) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, contending that the suit was ex-facie barred by limitation. The trial court allowed the applications and rejected the plaint.
The Gujarat High Court, however, reversed the trial court’s order on 8th February 2024, holding that limitation was a triable issue and could not be the sole basis for rejecting the plaint. The High Court also opined that there were multiple reliefs in the suit and that rejection of the plaint was not permissible solely because one relief was time-barred.
The Supreme Court reversed the High Court’s order and restored the trial court’s rejection of the plaint. The Court held that the suit was governed by Article 58 of the Limitation Act, 1963 which prescribes a three-year period for seeking declaratory reliefs from the date when the right to sue first accrues.
The plaint itself revealed that the Plaintiff had knowledge of the Will and Codicil in the first week of November 2014. The suit was filed on 21st November 2017 clearly beyond the three-year period. The plea that limitation is a mixed question of law and fact was rejected outright. The Court held that where the bar of limitation is apparent from the averments in the plaint itself, no evidence is necessary.
The Court firmly rejected the High Court’s reasoning that limitation would run only from the date of ‘complete’ or ‘full’ knowledge. The limitation begins when knowledge of the cause of action arises, not when the party chooses to fully understand its implications.
The other reliefs sought in the suit were held to be purely consequential to the declaratory relief. Once the main relief was barred, the consequential reliefs also fell. The Court reiterated that Section 3 of the Limitation Act mandates rejection of a suit barred by limitation, even if limitation is not pleaded as a defence.
The Supreme Court clarified that the right to sue accrues when the plaintiff becomes aware of the instrument sought to be declared invalid. Courts are duty-bound to dismiss suits that are time-barred on the face of the pleadings and cannot allow evidence to be led merely to prolong inherently barred claims. Practitioners must therefore exercise great caution while drafting pleadings involving declaratory reliefs, ensuring that limitation is clearly addressed and that the suit is instituted within the permissible time1.
By - Chaitanyaa Bhandarkar
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