TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1912 (12) TMI 1
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....e 8 of the Schedule to the Estates Land Act I of 1908 which provides a period of three years from the date the rent became due. 2. The contention in second appeal is that the rent being due under a registered instrument and six years having been allowed for such a suit according to the decisions of this Court, holding Article 116 of the Schedule to the Limitation Act to be applicable to such a suit, and the Estates Land Act having come into force (on 1st July 1908) only after the three years allowed under the Act had elapsed from the date of the rent accruing due, the Act ought to be held to be not applicable to the case. The question has already been the subject of consideration in this Court in Sundram Iyer v. Muthnganapatigal (1912) M.W....
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....t of it in a Court of law within such time as the Legislature may think fit from time to time to prescribe. It is at the same time a well established principle that unless the terms of a statute expressly so provide or necessarily require it, retrospective operation will not be given to a statute so as to affect, alter or destroy any vested right. See Section 6 Clause (e) of the Indian General Clauses Act and Section 8 Clause (c) of Madras Act I of 1891. For, to do so would result in great injustice, and it would be presumed that the Legislature did not intend to deprive any person of a right previously vested in him. The general rule that statutes relating to processual law have retrospective operation is as much subject to this important ....
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.... from regulating procedure" The rule regarding vested rights is not confined to substantive rights but extends equally, to remedial rights or rights of action including rights of appeal, an appeal being regarded as a continuation of the proceedings in the Court of first instance. In Wright v. Hale (1860) 6 H. & N. 227 the question was whether the plaintiff in the action was disentitled to costs under 23 and 24 Vic., C. 126, Section 34, according to which a plaintiff in an action for an alleged wrong recovering a verdict for less than 65 should not be entitled to any costs. Channal, B., observes: "In dealing with Acts of Parliament which have the effect of taking away rights of action, we ought not to construe them as having a retr....
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....slature has provided that as the period of time within which proceedings respecting antecedent damages or injuries might be taken before the proper tribunal." See also Inas v. London and South Western Railway Company (1868) L.R. 4 C.P. 17 where the soundness of this exception was questioned in Moon v. Durden (1848 ) 2 Ex. 22 by Rolfe, B. In re Joseph Suche and Co. Limited 1 Ch. D. 48, Jessell, M.R. again enunciated this rule as follows: It is a general rule that, when a Legislature alters the rights of parties by taking away or conferring any rights of action, its enactments, unless in express terms they apply to pending actions, do not affect them." His Lordship held that the right of a creditor to prove his debt in the winding-u....
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.... retrospective effect to a statute, will bear in mind the consequences of doing so. See Ex parte Todd; In re Ashcroft 19 Q.B.D. 186 it was held that Section 14 of the Mercantile Law Amendment Act, 1856, which provided that a debtor shall not lose the benefit of the statutory limitations by his co-debtors' payment of interest or part-payment of principal would not affect the efficacy of such payments made before the Act is passed, a decision which is hardly consistent with Towler v. Chatterton (1829) 6 Bing. 258 and The Queen v. The Leeds and Bradford Railway Company (1852) 21 L.J.M.C. 193. On principle, therefore, the present case must be regarded as one in which a vested right of action would be destroyed by the application of the Esta....