Maintainability of fresh application for delivery made after one year from the date of confirmation of sale.

V. Balasubrahmanyan, J.

1. These two civil revision petitions although heard at an interval of a week or two in between are disposed of by this common judgment, considering that both of them raise an identical point of limitation. Eachisa case where the holder of a money decree purchases a judgment-debtor's property in execution sale. After confirmation of the sale in his favour the decree-holder-purchaser applies to the executing Court for delivery. The application is filed within a period of one year from the date when the sale is made absolute. This is the prescribed period for an application of this kind under Article 134 of the Schedule to the Limitation Act, 1963. On this application by the decree-holder-purchaser, the Court orders delivery. But, for some reason or other, the purchaser does not succeed in obtaining actual delivery. The delivery warrant is returned unexecuted. In the one case, the judgment-debtor makes himself scarce, and the property is found under lock and key, and the purchaser does not move the Court for an order for breaking open the lock for gaining entry. In the other case an obstructer stands in the way of the delivery warrant being executed. Whichever be the cause, the application of the decree-holder purchaser gets ultimately dismissed by the executing Court. Subsequently, the purchaser moves the Court once again for delivery. This time the way is clear for obtaining delivery. In the one case the property is apparently no longer under lock and key. In the other case, the obstructer’s obstruction is by then removed out of the way. Meanwhile, however, more than a year has passed since the confirmation of the sale. It is this time lag which has been taken advantage of by the judgment-debtor in each case. His contention is that the present application for delivery filed by the decree-holder-purchaser is barred by limitation. He relies on Article 134 of the Schedule to the Limitation Act, 1963. This plea in bar has been upheld by the Court below in the first of the cases now before me. The Court which dealt with the other case, however, took a different view, holding that the subsequent application by the decree-holder-purchaser is not barred by limitation although it was filed after the expiry of one year from the date when the sale in has favour became absolute. The question for my consideration in these two revisions is which is the correct view about limitation

2. The learned Advocate-General put the case for the purchaser very simply. Much the same argument was addressed by Mr. R.S. Venkatachari for the purchaser in the other case. The argument was based on what was common ground between the parties In each case an application for delivery was admittedly filed in time by the decree-holder-purchaser, that is to say, within one year from the date when the sale became absolute. Admittedly, again, on that application the executing Court passed an order for delivery. Subsequently, no doubt, that application was dismissed, but the dismissal of that application did not alter the fact that the Court had in fact ordered delivery at an earlier stage. It follows that having obtained an order for delivery, the subsequent a application filed by the purchaser cannot be regarded as an application for an identical relief, namely for an order for deli, very, for the simple reason that the Court had already passed an order for delivery. In these events, the application of Article 134 is out of the question. That Article only prescribes the time-limit for an application for delivery by a purchaser of an immovable property at an execution sale. It does not deal with an application filed by the purchaser to effectuate an order of delivery passed by the executing Court. In other words, the purchaser's application, which is now in question, is not an application for delivery but an application for executing the order of delivery already passed by the executing Court. In this view, Article 134 is not the governin