limitation

The Limitation Act, 1963 prescribes periods for suits, appeals and applications in its Schedule. Under Section 3, a proceeding instituted after the period must be dismissed, even if limitation is not pleaded as a defence. Time may be extended for appeals and applications (not suits) on sufficient cause under Section 5, and certain periods are excluded or extended, for example time spent bona fide in a wrong court (Section 14) and a fresh period on written acknowledgment of liability (Section 18).

Limitation ordinarily bars the remedy, not the right: a time-barred debt still exists and may be paid or acknowledged. The exception is Section 27, under which the right to property itself is extinguished when the period to sue for possession expires, which is the basis of adverse possession.

Example

Filed four years after the loan was made, the money suit was barred by limitation under Article 19.

In Indian law

• Sections 3, 5, 14, 18 and 27, Limitation Act, 1963

See also

condonation of delay · adverse possession · vigilantibus non dormientibus jura subveniunt · suit

Read more in the study notes

• Judicial control: public and private law remedies, writ procedure and ouster clauses (Administrative Law)
• Corruption, maladministration and the ombudsman: Lokpal and Lokayukta (Administrative Law)
• Arbitration: meaning, kinds and salient features of the 1996 Act (Alternative Dispute Resolution Systems)
• Principal steps in arbitration and interim measures (Alternative Dispute Resolution Systems)
• Arbitral award and setting aside under section 34 (Alternative Dispute Resolution Systems)
• Enforcement of arbitral awards and foreign awards (Alternative Dispute Resolution Systems)