A entered into agreement with B for purchase of immovable property on 20.12.64. Agreement was registered. It was agreed that sale deed was to be executed by B within 03 months of getting due permission for sale from other co-owners. A died in 1972, B died in 1965. In 1993, C (successor of A) wanted to sell property to D. E (successor of B) filed objections. C filed suit against E on 06.04.94 for specific performance. Decide the preliminary objection that suit is barred by limitation.

The preliminary objection should fail unless the plaint itself shows that the suit was filed beyond the three-year period under Article 54. On the facts given, the stronger view is that the suit is not barred merely because the agreement is old; the real question is when the date fixed for performance expired, or alternatively when refusal to perform became known.

Governing provision

Article 54 of the Limitation Act prescribes a period of three years for a suit for specific performance. The time begins to run from the date fixed for performance, and if no such date is fixed, from the date when the plaintiff has notice that performance is refused.

A suit for specific performance cannot survive if the claim is stale on the face of the plaint. But where the contract makes performance depend on an event or permission, limitation ordinarily does not begin merely from the date of agreement; it begins when the performance date arrives or when refusal becomes clear.

Applying the facts

Here, the agreement was executed and registered on 20.12.1964, and the sale deed was to be executed by B within three months of getting due permission from the other co-owners. Because the contract itself made performance conditional upon obtaining permission, the crucial date is not the date of agreement alone. The plaintiff must show when permission was obtained, or when it became clear that B would not perform.

B died in 1965 and A died in 1972, yet no step was taken until 1994. That long silence by itself is damaging, but it does not automatically bar the suit if the contract had no definite performance date and the refusal was only later discovered or inferred from the conduct of the successor. Still, if permission from co-owners was never obtained and no clear refusal was pleaded or proved until decades later, the plaintiff faces a serious limitation problem under Article 54.

The difficulty for C is that a registered agreement of 1964 ordinarily does not remain enforceable indefinitely. If the condition for execution was capable of being fulfilled long before 1994, the suit may well be hopelessly late. But if the agreement itself left performance in suspense until the co-owners’ permission was obtained, and that permission was never obtained, courts examine whether there was a clear refusal and when notice of refusal arose.

Case law

The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that Article 54 turns on the date fixed for performance or clear notice of refusal, not on mere passage of time from the agreement. Recent decisions have also stressed that where the plaint itself reveals an inordinate delay, the court may reject it at the threshold as barred by limitation.

At the same time, the law also recognises that where the contract makes performance contingent on a future event, limitation does not necessarily start from the date of agreement itself. The contract must be read as a whole, and the court must identify the true trigger for performance.

Decision

On the facts stated, the preliminary objection should succeed if the plaint does not plead a later date of refusal or a later date fixed for performance. The gap from 1964 to 1994 is so large that, absent a specific and credible explanation, the suit is barred by limitation under Article 54.

If, however, C can plead and prove that performance was postponed by the agreed condition of obtaining co-owners’ permission and that refusal became known only within three years before 06.04.1994, the suit can survive. On the present statement of facts, that showing is not made, so the safer conclusion is that the suit is time-barred.thelawobserver+1

Illustration

If A agrees in 1964 to buy land and says the deed will be executed after permission is obtained, but nothing is done for thirty years, the law will not usually treat the agreement as indefinitely alive. A cannot wake up after decades and say limitation has still not begun unless a later refusal or later contractual trigger is clearly proved.