The Indian Carriage of Goods by Sea Act leads to the extinction of liability of the carrier or ship if the suit is not filed within the specified period, and the provisions of the Limitation Act are irrelevant once the liability of a party is extinguished under the Act.

1. The question that we are concerned with in this appeal is one of limitation in a suit for recovery of money said to be the value of goods short-delivered to the plaintiff, the Union of India owning Southern Railway. The defendant, the Scindia Steam Navigation Company Ltd., a shipping company is engaged in the business of undertaking the carriage of goods by sea. The court below has held that the claim for recovery of the value of goods short-delivered is barred by limitation since the suit has been instituted more than one year after the date the goods were short-delivered. That the suit was filed before the Subordinate Judge's Court of Cochin more than one year after the goods were short-delivered is not disputed. But it is said that earlier, a suit was filed before the City Civil Court, Madras and it was re¬presentd in the Cochin court finding that it ought to be filed in the said court. It is said that the plaintiff bona-fide believed that the suit was to be instituted in the City Civil Court, Madras and if S.14 of the Limitation Act, 1908 (which is the Limitation Act applicable to the case) is applied, then the suit would be in time. In other words, in computing the period of limitation prescribed for the suit, the plaintiff seeks exclusion of the period during which he had been prosecuting the proceedings in another court as according to if, that suit was prosecuted with due diligence and was prosecuted also in good faith, and it is only for defect of jurisdiction that the court did not entertain the suit.

2. That the period of limitation for such a suit is provided by the provisions of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, is evident. It is not any period of limitation under the Limitation Act, 1908 that applied. The Indian Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, 26 of 1925 carries a schedule and the relevant clause (3) in Para.6 of Article III in the schedule reads:

"In any event the carrier and the ship shall be discharged from all liability in respect of loss or damage unless suit is brought within one year after delivery of the goods or the date when the goods should have been delivered."

It may be pertinent to notice here that the provision is not that a suit shall be brought within one year from a specified date or that no suit shall be brought after the expiry of one year, but that if the suit is not brought within the time specified, the carrier and the ship would be discharged from all liability in respect of loss or damage. When once the liability of the carrier or ship terminates there is no survival of the cause of action against them for claiming damages caused by short-delivery. We need only advert to the decision of the Supreme Court of India which dealt with the very same clause in a case where the plaintiff sought to apply the provision in S.19 of the Limitation Act, 1908 to a case of short-delivery. In East & West Steamship Co. v. S. K. Ramalingam (AIR. 1960 S.C.1058) the court said in Para.25:

"The question is, however, of some importance in the facts of the Madras case. For if the provision is one of limitation, there would be some scope for argument in the facts of that case that the period was extended by acknowledgments of liability within the meaning of Art.19 of the Limitation Act. The question we have to decide is whether in saying that the ship or the carrier will be "discharged from liability", only the remedy of the shipper or the consignee was being barred or the right was also being terminated. It is useful to remember in this connection the international character of these rules, as has been already emphasised above. Rules of limitation are likely to vary from country to country. Provisions for extension of periods prescribed for limitation would similarly vary. We should be slow therefore to out on the word "discharged from liability" an interpretation which would produce results varying in different countries and thus keeping the position uncertain for both the shipper and the ship-owner. Q