(116) IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision: 27.04.2026 BHATERI ...Petitioner Vs.

SUSHIL AND ANOTHER ...Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VIRINDER AGGARWAL Present: Mr. Amit Kumar Goyal, Advocate for the petitioner.

VIRINDER AGGARWAL , J. (Oral)

1. The present revision petition has been filed assailing the order dated 04.08.2025 passed by the learned Civil Judge (Junior Division), Sonepat, vide which the application for rejection of the plaint filed by the petitioner has been dismissed.

2. Briefly stated, the respondent-plaintiff instituted a suit seeking possession by way of specific performance of an agreement to sell dated 24.09.2007, along with consequential relief of declaration and permanent injunction. It was pleaded that, in terms of the agreement, the sale deed was to be executed and registered on or before 23.09.2008. However, on the stipulated date, defendant No. 1 apprised the plaintiff that certain litigation concerning the suit property was pending between her and one Ganga Dayal, and assured the plaintiff that the sale deed would be executed upon the conclusion of the said litigation. It was further averred that defendant No. 1 undertook to inform the plaintiff once the dispute was resolved and expressed her willingness to complete the transaction. According to the plaintiff, it was only in the first week of June 2017 that he came to know that the aforesaid litigation had already been decided in the year 2015. Despite this, defendant No. 1 neither informed the plaintiff nor took any steps to execute and register the sale deed in his favour. The plaintiff thereafter issued a legal notice calling upon the defendant to perform her part of the contract, but the same evoked no response. Consequently, the present suit came to be filed. The petitioner- defendant moved an application under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure for rejection of the plaint, primarily on the ground that the suit, having been instituted after a delay of approximately nine years from the stipulated date for execution of the sale deed, was ex facie barred by limitation. The said application was contested by the plaintiff and, upon consideration, was dismissed by the learned trial Court vide the impugned order. Aggrieved against the said order, the petitioner-defendant No.1 has preferred the present revision petition.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner-defendant No.1 contended that the learned Civil Court failed to properly appreciate the settled position of law on limitation, and that the suit, on the face of it, is hopelessly barred by time. It was argued that, in terms of the Limitation Act, 1963, a suit for specific performance of a contract is required to be instituted within a period of three years from the date fixed for execution of the sale deed, as stipulated in the agreement to sell. In the present case, the agreement dated 24.09.2007 fixed 23.09.2008 as the last date for execution and registration of the sale deed, whereas the suit came to be filed much later, after an inordinate delay of several years. Learned counsel submitted that such a suit, being ex facie time- barred, ought to have been rejected at the threshold under Order VII Rule 11 CPC. It was further contended that the learned Civil Judge committed a material illegality and jurisdictional error in declining the application for rejection of the plaint, despite the bar of limitation being apparent from the averments made in the plaint itself. In support of the aforesaid submissions, reliance was placed upon the judgments of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Shri Mukund Bhavan Trust and others vs. Shrimant Chhatrapati Udayan Raje Pratapsinh Maharaj Bhonsle and another, 2024 INSC 1025, and India Evangelical Lutheran Church Trust Association vs. Sri Bala and Co., 2025 INSC 42, to contend that where a suit is clearly barred by limitation on the basis of the plaint averments, the Court is duty-bound to reject the plaint at the initi