An order staying all further proceedings in a suit has the effect of suspending the plaintiff's right to apply for a final decree.

M. M. DUTT, J. :- This appeal is at the instance of the defendants in a suit for mortgage and it is directed against the final decree passed in the suit. The only question that is involved in this appeal is whether the application of the plaintiff for a final decree was barred by limitation.

2. The suit was decreed in a preliminary form on March 26, 1968. The decree inter alia, directed the defendants to pay the decretal amount within six months. Being aggrieved by the preliminary decree, the defendants preferred an appeal against the same to this Court being F.A.T. No. 1890 of 1968. In the said appeal, the defendants obtained an interim order staying all further proceedings in the suit pending the disposal of the appeal On April 11, 1972 the said appeal against the preliminary decree was dismissed for default. The plaintiff made an application for final decree on April 11, 1975, that is, more than three years after the last date of payment fixed by the preliminary decree. The applications was opposed by the defendants. It was contended by them that as the application was made three years after the date of payment of the decretal amount, it was barred by limitation.

3. The learned Subordinate Judge took the view that as the appeal was in continuation of the suit, the period of limitation should be computed from the date of the dismissal of the appeal for default on April 11, 1972. In that view of the matter, he overruled the contention of the defendants that the application was barred by limitation and passed the final decree as prayed for. Hence this appeal.

4. The residuary Art.137 of the Limitation Act, 1963 prescribes three years limitation for an application from the date when the right to apply accrues. It is not disputed that Article 137 applies to an application for final decree for mortgage. We are, therefore, concerned with the question as to when the right to apply of the plaintiff for a final decree accrued. The learned Subordinate Judge, in our view, was not right in entertaining the view that as the appeal was a continuation of the suit, the period of limitation should be computed from the late of dismissal of the appeal for default. As the order dismissing the appeal for default was not a decree, there was question of merger of the preliminary decree passed in the suit with any appellate decree.

5. It has however, been stated already that this Court by its order stayed all further proceedings in the suit. It is now to be considered whether such stay of proceedings suspended the plaintiffs right to apply for a final decree, so that in computing the period of limitation the plaintiff could excluded the period during which the proceedings a ware stayed. It is not disputed that if the said period is excluded, the filling of the application was within time. An application for a final decree is not an application for execution and so the provision of S.15 of the Limitation Act

does not in terms apply enabling the exclusion of the period of stay of all further proceedings in the suit. The

plaintiff, therefore, cannot avail himself of the provision of S.15 as rightly contended by Mr. Saktinath Mukherjee, learned Advocate appearing on behalf of the defendants appellants. Nor could the provision of Section 15 be extended by analogy or reference to proceedings to which it did not expressly apply or could be said to apply by

necessary implication as held by the Supreme Court in A.S.K. Krishnappa v. S.V.V. Somiah, AIR 1964 SC 227. We

are, therefore, really concerned with the implication of the interim order of this Court staying all further proceedings in the suit. It is contended by Mr. Mukherjee that in spite of the order of this Court staying all further proceedings in the suit, the plaintiff was not debarred from making an application for final decree. He submits that the said order did not operate as an order of injunction restraining the plaintiff from filing an application for final decree and consequently, the plain