1992 PLP 1577 (CLC)

Nemo for Respondent. Date of hearing: 24th September, 1991. Facts giving rise to this civil revision are that the petitioner, Mandhi Khan, filed a suit against the respondent, Province of the Punjab, which was dismissed in default, on 19th October, 1981. Application for restoration of the suit was made by him on 21st November, 1981 which was dismissed inter alia on the ground of limitation. Petitioner went in appeal before an Additional District Judge but without success. Hence this civil revision.

2. It was contended by learned counsel for the petitioner that on 19th November, 1981 the Presiding Officer, before whom the application for restoration of suit was to be made, was on leave and on 20th November, 1981 it was Friday and as such the application was submitted on 21st November, 1981. According to him, therefore, the application was within time.

3. The above plea was raised before the learned Additional District Judge as well but was repelled by him for the following reasons:‑ "The precise contention raised by the appellant before the learned lower Court was that he wrongly took the date of hearing as 19‑11 1981 instead of 19‑10‑1981 and it was for this reason that he could not appear before the learned lower Court. This contention did not find favour with the learned Civil Judge on the ground that if the appellant had really taken the date of hearing as 19‑11‑1981 then there was no reason as to why he made the application for restoration on 21‑11‑1981. This finding of the learned Civil Judge was assailed on the ground that the application for restoration was not made because the Presiding Officer was himself on leave and 20‑11‑1981 was Friday. This contention is not available to the appellant because whenever any Presiding Officer is on leave some other Presiding Officer is there to attend to his duty and the application could be presented to the Duty Judge who was attending to the Court work of Mr. Rauf Ahmad Sheikh. The appellant was represented by a counsel and it cannot be said that he being a layman did not present the application on 1.9‑11‑1981 because of the leave of the Presiding Officer of the Court. Since the question of limitation was involved, therefore, the appellant could present the application to the learned Civil Judge who was looking after the Court work of Mr. Rauf Ahmad Sheikh. The application for restoration was really time‑barred." I find nothing wrong with the above reasoning of the learned Additional District Judge which is quite cogent. It was not pleaded before me that there was no Duty Judge available on 19th November, 1981. Even if it was so, the application could be presented before the Reader of the Presiding Officer who was on leave. Since under Article 163 of the Second Schedule to the Limitation IA Act, 1908, period of limitation was to run from the date of dismissal of the Suit the petitioner should have filed the application on 19th November, 1981 before someone especially when the next day was a holiday and he was already late in making the application. Time was running against him but he failed to move quickly. He cannot, therefore, avoid the consequences of his indolence.

4. There is no force in this civil revision. It is therefore, dismissed with costs. H.B.T./M‑55/L Revision dismissed.