An application for setting aside an ex parte decree is not a review of judgment within the meaning of Article 182(3) of the Limitation Act.

( 1 ) THESE are decree-holders appeals arising out of execution proceedings.

( 2 ) OF tile two decrees which are sought to be executed one was obtained on 29-5-1941 and the other on 26-9-1947. The defendants applied for setting aside these decrees. The applications were dismissed for default. Therefore, some fresh applications were made and the restoration proceedings remained pending till the 20th January 1951, when the restoration applications were finally rejected.

( 3 ) THE decree-holders then applied for execution. One of these applications was made on 1-7-1951 and in respect of the other decree the application for execution was presented on 2-7-1951. The decree-holders prayed for attachments in both these cases. The judgment-debtors filed objections and the main objection, which has now come up for consideration is that the execution applications were barred by time. The executing court upheld the objection and dismissed the applications as barred by time and the decision was upheld in appeal by the lower appellate court. Learned Counsel for the appellant contends that inasmuch as the judgment-debtors filed applications for setting aside the ex parte decree they substantially moved the court to reviews its judgment and the order passed by the court declining to set aside the ex parte decree was the order passed on review, within the meaning of Article 182, Clause (3) of the Indian Limitation act. Article 182 of the Indian Limitation Act, which lays down the period of limitation as three years for execution of decrees mentions in varying circumstances different dates from which time would begin to run. Ordinarily the period of three years provided in the article begins to run from the date of the decree or order sought to be executed Clause (3) says :

" (Where there has been a review of judgment) the date of the decision passed on the review. "

( 4 ) THE argument pressed by learned Counsel is that when the judgment-debtors applied for the setting aside of the ex parte decree they did nothing more or less than to pray that the court should be pleased to examine the decree and set it aside. This request by the judgment-debtors for an examination of the decree and for setting it aside was in substance a request made to review the judgment that had been passed ex parte and the period of limitation! therefore should run when the court after considering the matter of reviewing the judgment had declined to set the ex parte decree aside. Reliance is placed by learned Counsel on a decision of the Patna High court infirm Dedhraj Lachminarayan v. Bhagwan Das, AIR 1937 Pat 337 (A ). That was a case in which the suit had been dismissed by the trial court on 8-1-1931. On 7-8-1931 the appeal was allowed and the suit was decreed by the first appellate court. Thereafter the defendants made an application under Order 41, Rule 21 of the Code of Civil Procedure on 27-8-1931. This application was rejected by the appellate court on 18-11-1931. Against this order an appeal was preferred to the High Court which was dismissed on 1-9-1933. The decree holders then applied for execution on 15-11-1934. Thus, the application was more than three years after 27-8-1931, when the decree had been passed in the suit and the question which came up for consideration before the Patna High Court was whether an appeal against the rejection of the application under Order XLI, Rule 21 having been dismissed on 1-9-1933 the application for execution was within time The matter was considered in a Letters Patent Appeal by a Bench consisting of Courtney-Terrell, C. J. and james, J. The learned Chief Justice took the view that there, was no essential difference between orders for restoration and orders for review. In the course of the judgment he observed :

"notwithstanding the heading in Order 47, the matters dealt with in that order are reviews for which applications are made on certain specified grounds and it is true that in common parlance the term "re