Limitation and public premises rent recovery: time-barred dues are not "payable" under the special recovery procedure.

Arrears of rent that were already barred by limitation could not be recovered under section 7 of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1958, because the word "payable" in that provision means legally recoverable. The Court held that section 7 creates only a summary recovery mechanism and does not confer a fresh right to recover a debt that is no longer enforceable in law. The fact that the provision does not specify its own limitation period did not permit recovery of time-barred dues, so the limitation objection was correctly upheld.

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Issues: Whether arrears of rent that were already time-barred under the law of limitation could still be recovered by resort to section 7 of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1958.

Analysis: Section 7 provides only a summary procedure for recovery of arrears of rent in respect of public premises. The expression "payable" in that provision must be read in context and means legally recoverable. Where a claim is barred by limitation, the Estate Officer cannot treat it as payable merely because section 7 does not itself prescribe a limitation period. The provision does not create a fresh right to recover a debt otherwise time-barred; it only furnishes a special mode of recovery for amounts that remain enforceable in law. The principle that limitation bars the remedy without extinguishing the right does not assist where the statute invoked does not authorise recovery of a time-barred amount.

Conclusion: The time-barred arrears were not recoverable under section 7, and the objection based on limitation was correctly accepted.

Ratio Decidendi: A special recovery procedure does not create a right to recover a debt that is no longer legally recoverable, and the statutory expression "payable" must be confined to claims enforceable in law.

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