Reasonable time for money claims under the MRTP Act was measured against Article 137, and delayed compensation claims failed.

Compensation applications under Section 12B of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act were treated as money claims, and where no express limitation period existed, they still had to be filed within a reasonable time. The Court used Article 137 of the Limitation Act, 1963 as the benchmark for assessing reasonableness and found applications filed after more than five years to be beyond that standard. It also refused remand because it would only prolong the dispute. The challenge therefore failed and the view that the claims were time-barred was upheld.

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Issues: Whether compensation applications under Section 12B of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969, filed after more than five years from the accrual of the cause of action, were barred as not brought within a reasonable time and were liable to be dismissed.

Analysis: The compensation claim was held to be a money claim. The governing statute did not prescribe an express limitation period, but the Court held that where no statutory period is fixed, the claim must still be made within a reasonable time. The Court applied the principle that, for money claims of this nature, the three-year period reflected in Article 137 of the Limitation Act, 1963 furnishes a sound standard for assessing reasonableness. The Court found that the claims, instituted after a delay of more than five years, were beyond reasonable time. It also declined to remand the matters, since that would only prolong the dispute.

Conclusion: The compensation applications were rightly held to be time-barred and the challenge to that view failed.

Final Conclusion: The writ petitions were dismissed, and the Commission's view that the claims were not filed within a reasonable period was upheld.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a statute creating a money claim does not prescribe a limitation period, the claim must nevertheless be brought within a reasonable time, and Article 137 of the Limitation Act, 1963 may be used as the governing benchmark for that assessment.

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