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Issues: (i) Whether Section 44A of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 merely prescribes the mode of execution of a foreign decree or also fixes the period of limitation for filing execution proceedings; (ii) what is the period of limitation for executing in India a decree passed by a foreign court of a reciprocating country; and (iii) from which date such limitation period begins to run.
Issue (i): Whether Section 44A of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 merely prescribes the mode of execution of a foreign decree or also fixes the period of limitation for filing execution proceedings.
Analysis: Section 44A enables a foreign decree of a reciprocating territory to be executed in India as if it had been passed by the District Court, and requires filing of a certified copy of the decree together with the requisite certificate. The provision also attracts Section 47 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 for execution proceedings and permits refusal of execution where the decree falls within the exceptions in Section 13. The provision is procedural and enabling in character; it does not speak to limitation. Limitation is governed separately by the Limitation Act, 1963, and an application for execution is within the scope of Section 3 of that Act.
Conclusion: Section 44A does not prescribe limitation for execution of a foreign decree.
Issue (ii): What is the period of limitation for executing in India a decree passed by a foreign court of a reciprocating country.
Analysis: Article 136 of the Limitation Act, 1963 was held to be confined to decrees of Indian civil courts and not to foreign decrees. Since an execution petition under Section 44A must also be accompanied by a written execution application complying with Order 21 Rule 11(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, and no specific article elsewhere in the Limitation Act directly provides for such an application, the residuary Article 137 applies. At the same time, the Court held that limitation should ordinarily be governed by the law of the country where the decree was passed, because once the remedy is extinguished there, the right to execute cannot be revived in the forum country.
Conclusion: The applicable limitation is the limitation period prescribed in the reciprocating foreign country, and Article 136 of the Limitation Act, 1963 does not apply.
Issue (iii): From which date such limitation period begins to run.
Analysis: A decree becomes enforceable on the date it is passed, and there is no separate cause of action for execution. Therefore, if no execution steps are taken in the cause country within its prescribed limitation period, time runs from the date of the foreign decree. If execution proceedings are first pursued in the cause country and remain uncompleted, the application under Section 44A can be filed in India within three years from the finalisation of those execution proceedings, as governed by Article 137 of the Limitation Act, 1963. Applying for certified copies abroad does not itself amount to step-in-aid of execution.
Conclusion: Limitation ordinarily runs from the date of the foreign decree, subject to the three-year period after finalisation of execution proceedings in the cause country where steps-in-aid were first taken there.
Final Conclusion: The appeal failed, and the orders holding the execution petition time-barred were sustained, though on a different legal basis.
Ratio Decidendi: Section 44A of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 is only an enabling provision for executing a foreign decree in India and does not create a fresh limitation period; the enforceability and limitation of the decree are governed primarily by the law of the country where the decree was passed, with Article 137 of the Limitation Act, 1963 applying to the execution application in India in the manner indicated by the Court.
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