Vencata Rao and Others vs Venkatachalam Chetty

In this case the date of the judgment of the District Court was January 28th, 1904. The Court closed for the vacation on April 18th and re-

opened on June 20th. The appellant made no application for a copy of the judgment between January 28th and April 18th and has given no

explanation why he failed to do so.

On the day of re-opening of the Court (June 20th) he applied for a copy of the judgment, i.e obtained his copy on the 22nd and he filed his

appeal to this Court on July 11th the first day after the re-opening of this Court. The question is whether in the computation of the 90 days his time

for appeal to this Court the period during which the District Court was closed is to be excluded as time requisite for obtaining a copy of the

judgment within the meaning of Section 12 of the Limitation Act. Having regard to the fact that the appellant had from January 28th to April 18th to

apply for his copy, we do not think that he is entitled to exclude the period during which the Court was closed as time requisite for obtaining a

copy of the judgment within the meaning of the Section. This time was not requisite inasmuch as the appellant had a period of some 80 days before

the Court closed in which to apply for a copy.

The two Bombay cases to which our attention has been called Tukaram Gopal v. Pandurang Sadaram ILR 25 B. 514 and Pandharinath v.

Shankar ILR 25 B. 586 are distinguishable on the ground that in both these cases the right of appeal was subsisting at the time the application for

the copy was made. In the present case the appeal was out of time at the time the application for the copy was made.

We are of opinion that this appeal is out of time. It is accordingly dismissed with costs.