1. The appellant was plaintiff before the trial Court. According to the plaintiff, cause of action for recovery of the part of amount arose on 8-7-1992 when the bill of the plaintiff was not paid by the defendant and partly on 8-12-1992 when the security deposit was not released. The appellant, in March, 1995, filed a writ petition under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India before the High Court of Madhya Pradesh bearing W.P. (Mandamus) No.1163/1995 (M/s R.K. and Associates v. Municipal Committee Raigarh) which was disposed of on 15-7-1996 with a direction to the appellant/plaintiff to take recourse to suit. According to the plaintiff, he issued statutory notice under Section 319 of the Chhattisgarh Municipalities Act, 1961 (for short, 'the Act of 1961') and after service of notice received by the defendant on 22-10-1996, the suit was filed on 8-1-1997 with an application under Section 14(2) of the Limitation Act, 1963. The trial Court by its impugned order rejected the application under Section 14(2) of the Limitation Act, 1963, thereby dismissed the suit holding that the suit is barred by 24 days. Questioning that order, the instant first appeal has been filed.

2. Mr. Ram Kumar Tiwari, learned counsel appearing for the appellant/plaintiff, would submit that the finding recorded by the trial Court is perverse and contrary to record, as the trial Court is absolutely unjustified in rejecting the application under Section 14(2) of the Limitation Act, 1963, as notice under Section 319 of the Act of 1961 was necessary before filing the suit which ought to have been included while computing the period of limitation for filing the civil suit.

3. Mr. Pankaj Agrawal, learned counsel appearing for the respondent/defendant, would support the impugned order.

4. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and went through the record with utmost circumspection.

5. The question for consideration would be, whether the trial Court is justified in rejecting the application under Section 14(2) of the Limitation Act, 1963?

6. Section 14(2) of the Limitation Act, 1963 provides as under: -

“14. Exclusion of time of proceeding bona fide in court without jurisdiction.—(1) xxx xxx xxx

(2) In computing the period of limitation for any application, the time during which the applicant has been prosecuting with due diligence another civil proceeding, whether in a court of first instance or of appeal or revision, against the same party for the same relief shall be excluded, where such proceeding is prosecuted in good faith in a court which, from defect of jurisdiction or other cause of a like nature, is unable to entertain it.”

7. The object of Section 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 is to give relief to a person who institutes proceedings which by reason of some technical defect are thrown out. From a bare reading of Section 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963, it is apparent that there are at least three pre-conditions for its application:

(i) parties in the civil suit and in the subsequent proceeding (in which condonation is prayed for) must be the same;

(ii) the suit and the later proceeding must seek the same relief; and

(iii) the Court where the earlier suit was filed was unable to entertain it from defect of jurisdiction or other cause of a like nature.

8. The first question would be, whether the earlier writ petition filed by the plaintiff before the M.P. High Court and disposed off with liberty to file civil suit would fall within the expressions “another civil proceeding and in a court of first instance” within the meaning of Section 14(1) of the Limitation Act, 1963?

9. It may be noticed that Section 14 of the Limitation Act, 1963 does not speak of a “civil court” but speaks only of a “court”. It is not necessary that the court spoken of in Section 14 should be a “civil court”. Any authority or tribunal having the trappings of a court would be a “court” within the meaning of this section. It need not be a civil court and as such the writ court