Limitation Act Doesn’t Apply to Revision Under Karnataka Land Revenue Act: SC

Case Title: M.R.R. Setty (Dead), by LRs Versus Government of Karnataka and others

Case No.: SLP (C) Nos. 23954-23955 OF 2023)

Coram: Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva

Court Observation

“We are at a loss to understand as to how this provision[for delay condonation as per S.5 Limitation Act] aids the case of the Government. It has no application in the present scenario, as we are not dealing with appeals under the [Limitation ]Act of 1964, but with exercise of revisional power under Section 56 thereof…Once the proviso to Section 56(3) stipulated in categorical terms that the power of revision under Section 56(1) could be exercised in respect of an order, against which no appeal has been preferred, at any time within three years from the date of such order, the provisions of the Limitation Act, 1963, cannot be smuggled in to negate and defeat the limitation prescribed in the afore stated proviso.”

“In the light of the clear embargo on exercise of such revisionary power in relation to an order, which was not appealed against, beyond the period of three years from the date of such order, the very invocation of such power by the Joint Director/Registrar of Land Records was without any mooring in the statute. The exercise being vitiated in its very inception, the Division Bench was not justified in opining that, as no adverse order had been passed yet, the learned Judge ought not to have interfered. Requiring M.R.R. Setty or his successors-in-interest to participate in such an enquiry, based on invocation of power well beyond the prescribed limitation, cannot be sustained and the learned Judge was, therefore, fully justified in interfering with the notice and in allowing the writ petitions. The Division Bench erred in holding to the contrary and the same was compounded by the other Bench by rejecting the review petition.”

Limitation Act Doesn’t Apply to Revision Under Karnataka Land Revenue Act: SC