LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has held if a suit is found to be barred by limitation the plaint has to be rejected forthwith without resorting to the evidence or framing of any issue.

The court held that limitation is not a mere technicality or a hypertechnicality rather once limitation expires, a right accrues in favour of the other side by operation of law and it cannot be taken away lightly.

The court said it is a settled principle of law that question of law even if not taken or raised by the opposite party, could be considered by the courts at the appellate and revisional stage.

The court passed this order on a petition of Muhammad Akram who approached the court against the decision of a lower court which dismissed his suit being time barred.

The court dismissed the petition and said the petitioner instituted the suit after the transfer of the suit property in favour of the respondents beyond the period of limitation from the target date and upheld and maintained the findings recorded by the courts below.

The court said in the present case, the petitioner sought a decree for specific performance of agreement to sell dated February 25, 2010, with the assertion that the target date was March 15, 2010, which was extended as per terms and conditions of the agreement, automatically, due to pendency of the civil litigation.

The court also said it is evident from the record that no injunctive order germane to suit property was ever passed by any court of competent jurisdiction in proceedings of the civil litigation and nothing as such was incorporated in the revenue record till the target date and the same position remained till October 17, 2012. This means thereby the petitioner failed to perform his part of the agreement till the target date and even he did not issue any notice showing his willingness to perform his part and the petitioner remained indolent for a considerable period, the court added.

The court held that the courts below while considering the law on the subject and facts of the case have rightly concluded that the suit of the petitioner/plaintiff was barred by limitation.

The court said in the instant case, the courts below have minutely dilated upon the evidence of the parties and have also rightly non-suited the petitioner on merits as well and added the impugned judgments and decrees do not suffer from any infirmity; rather a law on the subject has rightly been construed and appreciated.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024