When a claim is time-barred and when a court still hears it

The operative bar is section 3(1): subject to sections 4 to 24, every suit instituted, appeal preferred and application made after the prescribed period shall be dismissed, although limitation has not been set up as a defence. Section 3(2) fixes when a proceeding is instituted: a suit when the plaint is presented to the proper officer, a set-off on the same date as the suit, and a counter-claim on the date it is made in court.

The periods are in the Schedule, which is divided into suits, appeals and applications. Each division carries its own articles, so an application is governed by its own article rather than by the article that governs a suit on the same claim, although the two may well come to the same number of years. Article 54 gives three years for specific performance of a contract, from the date fixed for performance or, if none, from when the plaintiff has notice that performance is refused. Article 55 gives three years for compensation for breach of contract, from the date of breach, or of the breach sued on where there are successive breaches, or when a continuing breach ceases. Article 113 gives three years from when the right to sue accrues for any suit with no other period. On the appellate side, Article 116 gives ninety days for an appeal to a High Court from a decree or order under the Code and thirty days to any other court, and Article 117 gives thirty days for an appeal within the same High Court. Article 137 gives three years for any application for which no other period is provided.

The third column of the Schedule says when time begins for each article, and the claim has to be fitted to the right article before the date can be worked out. Section 9 says that once time has begun to run, no later disability or inability to sue stops it. Section 12(1) excludes the day from which the period is reckoned. For an appeal or a review, section 12(2) and (3) also exclude the day the judgment was pronounced and the time needed to obtain a copy of the decree and the judgment, and section 12(4) excludes the time needed to obtain a copy of an award when the application is to set it aside.

Section 4 lets a suit, appeal or application whose period expires on a day the court is closed be filed on the day it reopens, and the Explanation treats the court as closed if it is closed during any part of its normal working hours. Section 4 extends only the prescribed period. My Preferred Transformation and Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. v. Faridabad Implements Pvt. Ltd. [2025] 1 S.C.R. 729 held that it does not carry over the additional thirty days that the proviso to section 34(3) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act allows, so a challenge filed on reopening after that extra window ended in the vacation was out of time.

Section 6(1) lets a person who is a minor, insane or an idiot when the period would start sue or apply for execution within the same period after the disability ends. Where two disabilities overlap, time runs only after both cease, and where the disability lasts until death, the legal representative gets the same period after the death. The Explanation treats a child in the womb as a minor.

Section 17(1) delays the start of time where the claim is based on the defendant's fraud, where fraud concealed the knowledge of the right, where the claim is for relief from a mistake, or where a necessary document was fraudulently concealed. Time then runs from when the plaintiff discovered the fraud or mistake or could with reasonable diligence have discovered it. The proviso protects a bona fide purchaser for value who had no notice. Section 17(2) lets a decree holder whose execution was prevented by the judgment debtor's fraud or force apply for an extension within one year of discovering the fraud or the force ending.

Section 14(1) excludes, from the period for a suit, the time the plaintiff spent prosecuting with due diligence another civil proceeding against the defendant on the same matter in good faith in a court that could not entertain it for defect of jurisdiction or a cause of a like nature. Section 14(2) does the same for an application against the same party for the same relief. Both the day the earlier proceeding began and the day it ended are counted, and misjoinder of parties or causes of action is treated as a cause of a like nature.

Section 15 covers other exclusions. Section 15(1) excludes the time a suit or an execution was stayed by injunction or order. Section 15(2) excludes the notice period where the law requires notice before suit, or the time needed to obtain a required consent or sanction. Section 15(5) excludes the time the defendant was absent from India.

Section 18(1) starts a fresh period from the date of a written acknowledgment of liability, signed by the party against whom the right is claimed or someone through whom he derives liability, provided it was made before the original period expired. Under the Explanation the acknowledgment may be sufficient even if it does not state the exact amount, says payment is not yet due, refuses to pay, claims a set-off, or is addressed to someone other than the creditor; signed includes signed by a duly authorised agent. An acknowledgment made after expiry does not revive a barred claim.

Asset Reconstruction Company (India) Ltd. v. Bishal Jaiswal (2021) 6 SCC 366 held that entries in a company's balance sheet, if properly made and not qualified by caveats, can amount to an acknowledgment under section 18. Section 19 gives a fresh period from a payment on account of a debt made before the period expires by the person liable or his authorised agent, provided an acknowledgment of the payment appears in the handwriting of, or a writing signed by, the person paying. Section 19 does not apply to money payable under a decree.

Section 5 lets the court admit an appeal or application, other than an application under Order XXI of the Code, after the period if the appellant or applicant satisfies it that he had sufficient cause. The Explanation accepts that being misled by an order, practice or judgment of the High Court in computing the period may be sufficient cause. It does not cover suits at all.

Collector, Land Acquisition, Anantnag v. Mst. Katiji (1987) 2 SCC 107 is relied on for reading sufficient cause liberally so that a matter is decided on merits; the Supreme Court there condoned the State's delay and remitted the appeal. The limit appears in Pathapati Subba Reddy v. Special Deputy Collector (LA) (2024) 4 SCC 241, where the Court upheld a refusal to condone a delay of 5659 days in a land acquisition appeal. The application must account for the whole period of delay, with dates. Katiji also assumes that the court has the power, and it was a case in which section 5 was not excluded. In Mahindra and Mahindra Financial Services Ltd. v. Maheshbhai Tinabhai Rathod [2021] 12 S.C.R. 94 the Supreme Court set aside an order condoning a delay of 197 days in filing an application under section 34(3) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, holding that the Bench below had put Katiji into an argument it could not carry: where a special enactment fixes the period and circumscribes the power to extend it, section 5 of the Limitation Act is not available.

Section 29(2) applies sections 4 to 24 to a period fixed by a special or local law only so far as that law does not expressly exclude them. Union of India v. Popular Construction Co. (2001) 8 SCC 470 held that section 5 does not apply to an application under section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, because section 34(3) allows only a further thirty days on sufficient cause and then says not thereafter.

Section 43(1) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 applies the Limitation Act to arbitrations as it applies to court proceedings, and section 43(2) treats the arbitration as commenced on the date in section 21, which is when the respondent receives the request to refer the dispute. A claim referred after the period that would apply to a suit is barred in the arbitration too. Where a court sets an award aside, section 43(4) excludes the period from the commencement of the arbitration to the court's order when computing time for fresh proceedings on the same dispute, and section 43(3) lets the court extend a contractual time bar for starting arbitration where undue hardship would otherwise be caused.

Execution of a civil court decree has twelve years under Article 136, and an application under Order XXI is outside section 5. The execution guide in this hub covers that period and the stay and sale applications.

Because section 3 requires dismissal whether or not limitation is pleaded, a plaint that shows on its face that the suit is barred can be rejected under Order VII Rule 11(d) of the Code before trial. Dahiben v. Arvindbhai Kalyanji Bhanusali (2020) 7 SCC 366 upheld the rejection of a plaint seeking cancellation of a sale deed on that ground. A plaintiff relying on an exclusion, an acknowledgment or the discovery of fraud must plead the facts and the dates in the plaint, so the court can see from the plaint itself why the suit is within time.