SC decides on interpretation of Section 5 of the Limitation Act requiring 'sufficient cause' demonstration for entire limitation period

The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Shivamma (Dead) by Lrs Versus Karnataka Housing Board & Ors. - 2025 (9) TMI 1721 - Supreme Court held that for condonation of delay under Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 the expression 'within such period' means the entire duration from when the cause of action accrued or limitation commenced until actual filing and therefore 'sufficient cause' must be demonstrated for both the prescribed limitation period and the interval between expiry and actual filing and rejected the Rewa Coal Fields interpretation limiting explanation only to post-expiry delay and further held that no room exists for governmental lethargy or utter negligence under Section 5 as public interest lies in fostering accountability and diligence.​

Facts:

Shivamma (Dead) by Legal Representatives ('the Appellant') was dispossessed of land bearing Survey No. 56/A admeasuring more than nine acres originally owned and possessed by her father. After the demise of the Appellant's father disputes arose between inter-alia the legal heirs of the original owner including the Appellant and one Sri Gurulingappa C. Patil which led to institution of partition suit being O.S. No. 74 of 1971.​

During the pendency of the partition suit Sri Gurulingappa C. Patil purportedly donated four acres out of the disputed land being the subject matter of the suit to the Government of Karnataka. Pursuant thereto the Respondent Housing Board sometime in the year 1979 took over possession of the four acres of land in question for the purpose of establishing a housing colony.​

On April 3, 1989 a compromise decree was passed in the partition suit by which the Appellant became the absolute owner of the parcel of land bearing Survey No. 56/A including the four acres of land in question. However since possession of the land in question was not reverted to the Appellant she instituted another suit being O.S. No. 1100 of 1989 against the Respondent Housing Board praying for relief of declaration of title and possession of the land in question.​

The Trial Court dismissed the said suit vide order dated April 17, 1997. Aggrieved by the dismissal the Appellant preferred Regular Appeal No. 405 of 2004 before the 3rd Additional District Judge Gulbargam. The First Appellate Court vide judgment and order dated January 3, 2006 allowed the appeal and accordingly decreed the suit in favor of the Appellant granting the declaration as prayed for in the suit. However the First Appellate Court declined to grant the relief of possession in view of the fact that substantial construction had already been undertaken on the land in question by the Respondent Housing Board and instead directed the grant of compensation to the Appellant.​

Since no action was taken by the Respondent in accordance with the decree drawn by the First Appellate Court the Appellant initiated execution proceedings on January 20, 2011. Remarkably it was only on February 14, 2017 that the Respondent Housing Board realized the seriousness of the situation and accordingly a second appeal came to be filed by it before the High Court along with an application for condonation of delay of 3966 days against the judgment and decree passed by the First Appellate Court.​

The Housing Board ('the Respondent') through its officers submitted that there was no sufficient cause demonstrated for such inordinate delay and that the explanation of governmental functioning complexities and pedantic approach of officials could not justify abandoning the decree for 3966 days. The Respondent contended that the last entry in the file of Karnataka Housing Board dates back to March 20, 2008 with no subsequent entry regarding movement of files and that the Respondent admits due to negligence of its officers the appeal could not have been filed within the prescribed period of limitation.​The Respondent further contended that exemption notifications and interpretations should favor strict construction in cases involving State and its agencies.

This appeal arises from the judgment and order passed by the High Court of Karnataka at Kalaburagi dated March 21, 2017 in I.A. No. 1 of 2017 filed in the Regular Second Appeal No. 200059 of 2017 (hereinafter the “Impugned Order”), by which the High Court condoned the delay of 3966 days in preferring the second appeal against the judgment and order passed by the First Appellate Court in Regular Appeal No. 405 of 2004 arising from the judgment and decree passed by the Trial Court in Original Suit No. 1100 of 1989.

Issues:

1. What is the meaning and import of the expression “within such period” used in Section 5 of the Limitation Act?
2. When can the exercise of discretion in condoning the delay by a lower court be interfered with by a court in appeal?
3. Whether the High Court in the present case at hand was justified in condoning the delay?

Held:

The Hon’ble Supreme Court in Shivamma (Dead) by Lrs Versus Karnataka Housing Board & Ors. - 2025 (9) TMI 1721 - Supreme Courtheld as under:

• Observed that, Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 confers a discretionary power to admit an appeal or application filed after the prescribed period only if the appellant or applicant shows “sufficient cause” for not preferring it within such period, and the court is satisfied about the sufficiency of such cause.
• Noted that, there existed two contradictory lines of decisions on the expression “within such period” in Section 5, one confining “sufficient cause” to the interregnum between expiry of limitation and actual filing as held in Ramlal, Motilal And Chhotelal Versus Rewa Coalfields Ltd - 1961 (5) TMI 54 - Supreme Court and the other requiring cause to exist within the prescribed period itself AJIT SINGH THAKUR & ANR. Versus STATE OF GUJARAT - 1981 (1) TMI 272 - Supreme Court.
• Held that, “within such period” cannot be interpreted in isolation and must be read contextually with the expressions “after the prescribed period” and “for not preferring the appeal or making the application within such period”, and that a plain reading of Section 5 shows “sufficient cause” must cover both the prescribed period of limitation and the period thereafter up to the date of filing.
• Held that, the expression “within such period” cannot be conflated with “during such period” or “for such period”, and that if the legislature intended to confine the enquiry only to the period after expiry or to the duration of limitation, it would have employed those expressions as it has done in other provisions of the Limitation Act.
• Noted that, Sections 4 to 24 including Section 5 are exceptions to the mandate in Section 3(1) that every suit, appeal and application instituted or made after the prescribed period “shall be dismissed”, and these exceptions proceed on the footing that delay beyond limitation must be on account of causes beyond the party’s reasonable control, and that negligence, inaction, lack of care or absence of bona fides cannot be ignored.
• Held that “sufficient cause” under Section 5 requires demonstration that the party was not negligent in pursuing the remedy throughout the entire limitation period, and that while the length of delay may be instructive, it is not determinative; the court must balance the explanation offered against the length of delay, keeping in view that substantial justice cannot be invoked to justify indifference to limitation.
• Observed that, there is “no room for largesse for State lethargy and leisure” under Section 5 and that the earlier jurisprudence granting liberal indulgence to State entities stands recalibrated after Office of the Chief Post Master General Versus Living Media India Ltd. - 2012 (4) TMI 341 - Supreme Court.The State or its instrumentalities cannot claim preferential treatment and public interest is better served by insisting on accountability, responsibility and diligence rather than condoning governmental inaction on the mere plea of public interest.
• Held that an appellate court will ordinarily not interfere with a discretionary order condoning delay unless it is “clearly wrong”, namely, where discretion has been exercised on irrelevant considerations, by ignoring relevant facts or in an arbitrary or capricious manner.
• Held on the facts that the High Court “has made a mockery of justice” condoning the delay of 3966 days. The record disclosed long periods of complete inaction by the Karnataka Housing Board, absence of any credible explanation for not filing the second appeal for over ten years after the first appellate decree dated January 3, 2006, and such conduct amounted to governmental lethargy which could not be condoned under Section 5 in the light of the settled principles. Accordingly, the Impugned Order condoning delay was set aside.

Our Comments:

The Supreme Court undertook a comprehensive re-examination of the Section 5 jurisprudence analyzing textual contextual and purposive dimensions of the Limitation Act. The judgment clarifies that the Ramlal, Motilal And Chhotelal Versus Rewa Coalfields Ltd - 1961 (5) TMI 54 - Supreme Court interpretation was unduly restrictive in limiting the requirement of showing sufficient cause only to the post-expiry period. The Rewa Coal Fields (supra) reasoning that a party cannot be asked to explain conduct during the entire limitation period because it is entitled to wait until the last day was found to conflate the availability of time with absence of obligation to explain delay. The Court noted that Rewa Coal Fields (supra)at para 8 observed that the expression 'within such period' contextually might mean 'within the period which ends with the last day of limitation prescribed' but rejected this because it would be repugnant to the context. The present decision reverses this and finds that the contextual reading actually supports the interpretation that both the prescribed period and post-expiry period must be explained.​

The STATE OF HARYANA Versus CHANDRA MANI & ORS. - 1996 (1) TMI 378 - Supreme Courtat para 3 followed Rewa Coal Fields (supra) in holding that 'in showing sufficient cause to condone the delay it is not necessary that the applicant/appellant has to explain whole of the period between the date of the judgment till the date of filing the appeal' and that 'it is sufficient that the applicant/appellant would explain the delay caused in the period between the last of the dates of limitation and the date on which the appeal/application is actually filed.'

The present decision explicitly disapproves this restrictive interpretation. In AJIT SINGH THAKUR & ANR. Versus STATE OF GUJARAT - 1981 (1) TMI 272 - Supreme Court at para 6 took a different approach holding that 'when it allows limitation to expire and pleads sufficient cause for not filing the appeal earlier the sufficient cause must establish that because of some event or circumstance arising before limitation expired it was not possible to file the appeal within time.' The Court in the present case appears to align more closely with the Ajit Singh Thakur (Supra) principle while recognizing that both periods must be considered. It is to be noted that, STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH Versus RAMKUMAR CHOUDHARY - 2025 (1) TMI 60 - SC Ordersupported the view that 'explanation of delay has to be shown for the period of limitation' and the Court adopted this position in the present judgment.​

The judgment extensively discusses the landmark shift in condonation jurisprudence triggered by Office of the Chief Post Master General Versus Living Media India Ltd. - 2012 (4) TMI 341 - Supreme Court which rejected governmental lethargy and held that State agencies cannot claim preferential treatment over private litigants. Subsequent cases like SHEO RAJ SINGH (DECEASED) THROUGH LRS. & ORS Versus UNION OF INDIA & ANR - 2023 (11) TMI 814 - Supreme Courtreiterated that discretion of lower courts should not be interfered with unless clearly wrong but that the boundaries of discretion itself have been redefined post the decision in Postmaster General(supra).

The Court also distinguishes between the test for 'sufficient cause' under Section 5 and the subsequent exercise of discretion to condone. At the stage of determining sufficiency of cause the court must examine whether negligence inaction or lack of diligence characterized the party's conduct during the limitation period. At the stage of exercising discretion after sufficient cause is established the court may consider broader equitable considerations. This two-stage framework is consistent with the principle articulated in MANIBEN DEVRAJ SHAH Versus MUNICIPAL CORPORATION OF BRIHAN MUMBAI - 2015 (3) TMI 64 - Supreme Court which states that 'what colour the expression 'sufficient cause' would get in the factual matrix of a given case would largely depend on bona fide nature of the explanation' and 'in cases involving the State and its agencies/instrumentalities the court can take note of the fact that sufficient time is taken in the decision-making process but no premium can be given for total lethargy or utter negligence on part of the officers of the State.'​

Relevant Provisions:

Section 3 of the Limitation Act, 1963.

3. Bar of limitation.—

“(1) Subject to the provisions contained in sections 4 to 24 (inclusive), every suit instituted, appeal preferred, and application made after the prescribed period shall be dismissed, although limitation has not been set up as a defence.

(2) For the purposes of this Act,—

(a) a suit is instituted,—

(i) in an ordinary case, when the plaint is presented to the proper officer;

(ii) in the case of a pauper, when his application for leave to sue as a pauper is made; and

(iii) in the case of a claim against a company which is being wound up by the court, when the claimant first sends in his claim to the official liquidator;

(b) any claim by way of a set off or a counter claim, shall be treated as a separate suit and shall be deemed to have been instituted—

(i) in the case of a set off, on the same date as the suit in which the set off is pleaded;

(ii) in the case of a counter claim, on the date on which the counter claim is made in court;

(c) an application by notice of motion in a High Court is made when the application is presented to the proper officer of that court.”

Section 4 of the Limitation Act, 1963.

“4. Expiry of prescribed period when court is closed.—

Where the prescribed period for any suit, appeal or application expires on a day when the court is closed, the suit, appeal or application may be instituted, preferred or made on the day when the court re-opens.

Explanation.—A court shall be deemed to be closed on any day within the meaning of this section if during any part of its normal working hours it remains closed on that day.”

Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963.

“5. Extension of prescribed period in certain cases.—

Any appeal or any application, other than an application under any of the provisions of Order XXI of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (5 of 1908), may be admitted after the prescribed period if the appellant or the applicant satisfies the court that he had sufficient cause for not preferring the appeal or making the application within such period. Explanation.—The fact that the appellant or the applicant was misled by any order, practice or judgment of the High Court in ascertaining or computing the prescribed period may be sufficient cause within the meaning of this section”

Section 3(1),Limitation Act, 1963: 'Bar of limitation.— (1) Subject to the provisions contained in sections 4 to 24 (inclusive), every suit instituted, appeal preferred, and application made after the prescribed period shall be dismissed, although limitation has not been set up as a defence.'​

Section 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963.

“14. Exclusion of time of proceeding bona fide in court without jurisdiction.—

(1) In computing the period of limitation for any suit the time during which the plaintiff has been prosecuting with due diligence another civil proceeding, whether in a court of first instance or of appeal or revision, against the defendant shall be excluded, where the proceeding relates to the same matter in issue and is prosecuted in good faith in a court which, from defect of jurisdiction or other cause of a like nature, is unable to entertain it.

(2) In computing the period of limitation for any application, the time during which the applicant has been prosecuting with due diligence another civil proceeding, whether in a court of first instance or of appeal or revision, against the same party for the same relief shall be excluded, where such proceeding is prosecuted in good faith in a court which, from defect of jurisdiction or other cause of a like nature, is unable to entertain it.

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