Only the actual days spent in prosecuting the proceedings in the court lacking jurisdiction can be excluded from the period of limitation under S. 14(2) of the Limitation Act.

JUDGMENT :- This is an appeal by the petitioner in the lower court, who was the assignee from the 39th creditor in certain proceedings under the Debt Conciliation Act, and who filed an execution petition for sale of properties. The petition was dismissed upon the main ground that it was barred by limitation. The actual question involved turns upon the interpretation, and application of S. 14(2) of the Limitation Act to the facts of this case. The broad facts which are required for our present purpose are as follows :

During the pendency of certain proceedings under the Debt Conciliation Act, an agreement was reached with regard to a sum of money payable to the appellants predecessor-in-interest, the creditor upon a charge of certain properties. This assignment was registered in accordance with S. 14(2) of the Debt Conciliation Act, and the petitioner in the lower court (appellant) is an assignee from the creditor, the assignment in his favour having been recognised by the Sub-Court, Kumbakonam. Subsequent to this recognition, the appellant instituted several petitions for transmission of the decree to the court of the District Munsif of Melur, within whose jurisdiction the charged properties were situate. The last order of the Sub-Court, Kumbakonam, ordering transmission of the decree to the Sub-Court, Madurai was on 12-12-1947 in E. A. No. 268 of 1947.

2. Subsequently, the appellant filed R. P. No. 238 of 1948 in the Court below for sale of the charged properties. This petition was dismissed, and the matter was taken up in appeal to the District Court. We are not now concerned with the details of further proceedings at that stage. It is sufficient to note that the matter came up to this court before Mack J. in A. A. O. No. 415 of 1951. The decision of Mack J. and the grounds upon which the learned Judge based that decision, will be found stated and discussed in the Bench decision of this court in Ramasami Aiyar v. Krishna Aiyar, 1957-2 Mad LJ 116 : ((S) AIR 1957 Mad 431), which was a Letters Patent Appeal from the judgment of Mack J. The learned Chief Justice (delivering the judgment on behalf of the Bench) held that the provisions of the Limitation Act could not be extended by analogy or principle to include the case of an agreement before the Debt Conciliation Board registered under S. 14(2) of the Debt Conciliation Act.

Hence Art. 182 clause (2) would not apply, and the period of limitation of six years was not available to the party; the normal period of three years will alone be operative. But upon the second ground of the decision of Mack, J., the learned Judges agreed with him that this was a case to which S. 14(2) of the Limitation Act would prima facie apply, though the Sub Court of Kumbakonam where the present appellant had been prosecuting his applications for transmission of the decree, was not the proper forum but a misconceived one. However, as S. 14(2) further required that the party seeking to avail himself of this exemption should prosecute the execution proceedings in good faith, and good faith was not admitted, the learned Judges remitted the execution petition to the court of the Subordinate Judge for further disposal.

3. The learned Subordinate Judge has now held (1) that the petitioner prosecuted the proceedings in good faith in the Kumbakonam Sub Court, and (2) that even, so, the execution petition was clearly time barred, even upon the application of S. 14(2) of the Limitation Act in conjunction with the normal period of limitation of three years under Art. 182. That is because, upon the relevant dates, the total period occupied by the four petitions in the Sub Court, Kumbakonam, comes to 158 days, and adding this to the normal limitation of three years, the execution petition is still time-barred by quite an appreciable interval or period. The execution petition would be in time only if the entire period during which successive petitions were instituted by the petitioner in the Sub Court, Kumbako