SITARAM DADA SAWANT Vs. RAMU DADA SAWANT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY his order dated the 26th September 1966 the learned Registrar has held that First Appeal Stamp No. 8263 of 1966 filed by the defendants in this Court is barred by limitation. The defendants have filed this note under Rule 7 (1) of the Appellate Side Rules for revision of the Registrar's Order. As the question is of general importance I would like to take my reasons for holding that the Registrar is right in the view he has taken.

(2.) IN a suit filed by the respondent against the appellants, the learned Civil Judge, Senior Division, Kolhapur, delivered his judgment on the 23rd of September 1965. He decreed the suit but directed:-"decree to be drawn up subject to the payment of necessary Court-fee stamp by the plaintiff who shall recover the same from the two defendants as per above order. " the respondent paid the necessary Court fees on the 16th of December 1965 and the decree was drawn up on the 23rd of December 1965. The appellants applied for certified copies of the judgment and decree on the 22nd of February 1966 and those copies were ready for delivery on the 20th of March 1966. The appellants filed the First Appeal in this Court on the 13th of June 1966, on the re-opening of the Court after the Summer Vacation.

(3.) UNDER Article 116 of the Limitation Act, 1963, the period prescribed for filing an appeal to the High is ninety days and the time begins to run from the date of the decree or Order. if the appellants are entitled to the exclusion of the time from the 23rd of September 1965, the date of judgment, till the 30 th of March 1966, their appeal would be within limitation. If on the other hand the time between the 22nd of February 1966, when the appellants applied for certified copies of the judgment and decree, and the 30th of March 1966, when the certified copies were ready is alone excluded, the appeal as held by the learned Registrar would be beyond time by eighty-two days.