Redemption claim and limitation: refusal of summary relief did not bar a civil suit for redemption.

A Collector's refusal to grant summary redemption under the Punjab Redemption of Mortgages Act, 1913, and direction to pursue the matter in civil court did not, by itself, extinguish the mortgagor's redemption claim. The order did not decide any adverse right on the merits and merely reflected that complicated questions of fact and law required ordinary adjudication. Article 14 of the Limitation Act, 1908, applied only to suits seeking to set aside a qualifying governmental order, and Section 12 did not create a bar where the Collector had not conclusively determined the redemption right. The civil suit for redemption was therefore within limitation.

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Issues: Whether rejection of a redemption petition by the Collector under the Punjab Redemption of Mortgages Act, 1913, made the mortgagor's later civil suit for redemption barred by limitation under Article 14 of the Limitation Act, 1908, and whether such rejection was an order conclusive under Section 12 of the Act.

Analysis: The statutory scheme allowed the Collector to dismiss a petition where summary relief was not appropriate, but the order in question did not determine any adverse right against the mortgagor. It merely relegated the parties to the civil court because complicated questions of fact and law were said to arise. An order of that character did not fall within the kind of order contemplated by Section 9 as one requiring setting aside, and Article 14 applied only to suits seeking to set aside an order of an officer of Government made within jurisdiction and operating to bar the claim unless annulled. Since the Collector had decided nothing against the mortgagor on the merits of the redemption claim, Section 12 did not create a bar to a civil suit within the ordinary period of limitation.

Conclusion: The later civil suit for redemption was not barred by limitation, and the Collector's order did not conclusively bar the mortgagor's substantive right to redeem.

Ratio Decidendi: An order declining summary redemption and directing the mortgagor to the civil court does not, by itself, require to be set aside under Article 14 of the Limitation Act and does not bar a civil suit for redemption under Section 12 of the Redemption of Mortgages (Punjab) Act, 1913.

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