The court emphasized that Section 5 of the Limitation Act does not apply to suits and highlighted the impermissibility of condoning delay without notice to the opposite party.

With the consent of the learned counsel for the parties, this writ petition is being disposed of today at the motion hearing stage.

2. It is a very peculiar case, where the respondent/plaintiff, by itself and through its counsel, as well as the learned Court below have exhibited and demonstrated their total ignorance of law as far as the applicability of Section 5 Limitation Act is concerned. Actually, the learned Court below has gone a step further by not only wrongly applying Section 5, but also allowing the plaintiff's prayer for condonation of the delay without issuing any notice to the defendants in the suit.

3. The respondent is a Financial Corporation under the State Financial Corporations Act, 1951. It filed a suit for declaration and injunction against the petitioners herein for setting aside a sale deed executed on 29th December, 1993 and for consequential relief of permanent injunction restraining the petitioners from selling, transferring etc. the property in question. The suit was filed in the month of March, 2007. Even though the sale deed, sought to be declared illegal, null and void etc., was executed on 29th December, 1993, in the plaint, the plaintiff/respondent made an averment that it was in the month of August, 2006 that it learnt about the execution of the aforesaid sale deed on 29th December, 1993. The premise of the suit, therefore, was the alleged knowledge by the plaintiff/respondent about the aforesaid sale deed having been acquired in the year 2006. In para 20 of the plaint, an averment with respect to the accrual of cause of action also stated that the plaintiff came to know about the sale and transfer of the property, though the sale deed dated 29th December, 1993, in the month of September, 2006.

4. Article 58 of the Schedule to the Limitation Act, which admittedly is the relevant Article applicable to this case, prescribes a period of three years for obtaining a declaration. The period of three years starts running from the time "when the right to sue first accrues". A plain reading of Article 58 (supra) leaves no one in any manner of doubt that the limitation to file a suit for declaration for declaring a sale deed null and void does not start per se from the date of execution or registration of the sale deed, but actually it starts from the date when the plaintiff obtains the knowledge about this fact. Whether, in fact, the averments regarding the plaintiff having acquired the knowledge in August-September, 2006 is correct or not or whether it is false or true, is a pure question of fact, which the plaintiff has to prove in the suit. Since the sale deed in question, admittedly, was executed and registered in the year 1993, very heavy onus lies upon the plaintiff to prove that the knowledge about its execution etc. was acquired by it in August-September, 2006. The burden of proof in this respect squarely lies upon the plaintiff. Even though the burden squarely lies upon the plaintiff, in view of the averments made in the plaint about the knowledge allegedly having been acquired in the year 2006 the plaintiff's suit, on the face of it, cannot be held to be 'time-barred' Whether ultimately it is held to be 'time-barred' or not, depending upon the evidence which will be led, shall be decided by the court in due course, at the stage of final disposal of the suit. This of course shall be based upon the appreciation of the evidence, especially the evidence adduced by the plaintiff about the knowledge having been acquired by it within three years prior to the presentation of the suit. This is one aspect of the matter.

5. Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 reads thus :

"5. Extension of prescribed period in certain cases. - Any appeal or any application, other than an application under any of the provisions of Order XXI of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, may be admitted after the prescribed period, if the appellant or the applicant satisfies the court that he had sufficient cause for not prefe