Section 14 limitation exclusion fails where winding up petitions and recovery suits concern different matters and the earlier case ended on merits.

Time spent in winding up petitions is not excluded under Section 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 unless the earlier proceeding was prosecuted with due diligence and good faith, involved the same matter in issue, and failed for want of jurisdiction or a like defect. A winding up petition and a recovery suit are materially different: the former seeks dissolution of a company unable to pay its debts, while the latter seeks adjudication and recovery of money. Because the winding up petitions were dismissed on merits on the basis of a bona fide defence, the exclusion provision did not apply, and the recovery suits were held to be barred by limitation.

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Issues: Whether the time spent in prosecuting winding up petitions could be excluded under Section 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 for filing the recovery suits, and whether the suits were within limitation on that basis.

Analysis: Section 14 applies only where the earlier proceeding was prosecuted with due diligence and good faith, related to the same matter in issue, and failed because of defect of jurisdiction or a cause of like nature. A winding up petition seeks dissolution of a company unable to pay its debts, whereas a suit for recovery seeks adjudication and recovery of money; the two proceedings are not for the same matter in issue. The winding up petitions in the present case were dismissed on merits because a bona fide defence was found, and not because the forum was unable to entertain them for want of jurisdiction or a similar defect. Decisions allowing exclusion of time in different factual settings did not assist the plaintiff, and an unreasoned direction in an earlier case was treated as sub silentio.

Conclusion: The plaintiff was not entitled to exclusion of the period spent in the winding up petitions under Section 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963, and the suits were barred by limitation.

Ratio Decidendi: Time spent in an earlier proceeding is excludable under Section 14 only when that proceeding concerns the same matter in issue and fails for want of jurisdiction or a like defect, not when it is dismissed on merits in a proceeding of a fundamentally different nature.

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