Covid-19 limitation exclusion governs Section 95 filing time, making applications filed after 01.03.2022 within limitation.

Limitation for Section 95 applications had to be computed by excluding the entire Supreme Court-declared Covid-19 period from 15.03.2020 to 28.02.2022. Because the ordinary limitation periods would have expired within that excluded window, the balance time remaining on 01.03.2022 became available after that date. On that computation, applications filed on 24.01.2023 and 25.02.2023 were within time, and the narrower view that only 90 days remained was rejected. The applications were therefore not barred by limitation.

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Issues: Whether the period excluded by the Supreme Court in the Covid-19 limitation orders entitled the applicant to compute the limitation for a Section 95 application by excluding the entire period from 15.03.2020 to 28.02.2022, so that the applications filed on 24.01.2023 and 25.02.2023 were within time.

Analysis: The limitation for filing the Section 95 applications, computed from the dates of the DRT decrees, would ordinarily have expired on 24.06.2021 and 18.03.2021. Those dates fell within the period subsequently excluded by the Supreme Court in the suo motu limitation proceedings. The operative direction required exclusion of the entire period from 15.03.2020 to 28.02.2022, after which the balance period of limitation remaining as on 01.03.2022 became available. Applying that exclusion, the applicants had the remaining limitation period after 01.03.2022, and the applications were filed before that extended period expired. The view that only 90 days were available was held to be incorrect.

Conclusion: The Section 95 applications were within limitation and were not barred by time.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a limitation period expires during the Supreme Court-declared Covid exclusion window, the entire excluded period must be removed from computation and the balance limitation remaining on 01.03.2022 becomes available thereafter.

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