( 1 ) THE application before us applied to enforce his right of pre-emption as a continuous owner under section 8 of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955. His prayer was rejected by the Munsiff by an order dated 26th January, 1996 on the ground that the claim was barred by limitation and that section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 did not apply. The applicant challenged this decision by way of a revisional application. The learned single Judge found that there was a conflict of views on the question whether the provisions of section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 apply to proceedings under section 8 of the West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955 (referred to as the WBLRA ). The matter was referred to a Larger Bench. This Bench has been constituted to resolve the apparent conflict of judicial opinion.

( 2 ) THE two contrary decisions are Chandra Sekhar Sarkar v. Baidyanath Ghosh : AIR 1982 Cal 6 where Guha-J took the view that section 5 applied to applications under section 8 of the WBLRA and Minor Subir Ranjan Mandal v. Sitanath Mukherjee : (1994)1 CLJ 106 where T. Chatterjee-J held that section 5 of the Limitation Act did not apply to applications under section 8 of the WB