Case: A. S. Krishnappa Chettiar &amp; Ors Vs. Nachiappa Chettiar &amp; Ors

therefor within one week after the receipt of this notice. Further you have till now collected Rs. 17,500 as per the scheme of arrangement and though you have not paid to the creditors their dividend amounts, you are bound by law and equity to pay interest to the aforesaid amounts. You are hereby informed that as you have not paid to the creditors the dividend amounts my client is put to a heavy loss and that you are bound to bear all the losses that may be caused thereby and make good the losses; you should immediately pay off the creditors the dividends and in default my client will have to launch proceedings against you an seek reliefs through Court".15. This letter was written by the vakil of the second defendant to the Trustees demanding payment of the maintenance allowance due to the second defendant. The second object of this letter was to require the trustees to pay out of the funds in their hands dividends due to the various creditors under the composition scheme. Mr. Sastri contends that this letter contains a definite admission of the jural relationship between the defendant on the one hand and the creditors on the one hand and the creditors on the other-i.e., the relationship of the creditor and, debtor and, therefore, this is an admission of liability under the decrees. Relying upon the decision of this Court in Shapoor Freedom Mazda v. Durga Prasad Chamaria, (1962) 1 SCR 140 : (AIR 1961 SC 1236 ), he says that the essential requirement for sustaining a plea of acknowledgment under S. 19 of the Limitation Act is that the statement on which it is sought to be founded must relate to a subsisting liability, indicate the existence of jural relationship and must be intended, either expressly or impliedly, to admit that jural relationship. Where such jural relationship is admitted expressly or impliedly, he contends, that the mere fact that the precise nature of the liability is not mentioned would not prevent the acknowledgment from falling within S. 19. That was a case in which the mortgagor had written to his creditor a letter to the following effect :"My dear Durgaprasad,Chandni Bazar is again advertised for sale on Friday the 11th inst. I am afraid it will go very cheap. I had a private offer of Rs. 2,75,000 a few days ago but as soon as they heard it was advertised by the Register they withdrew. As you are interested why do you not take up the whole. There is only about 70,000 due to the mortgagee-a payment of 10,000 will stop the saleYours sincerely,Sd/ J. C. Galstaun.The question to be considered was whether this amounted to an acknowledgment of the mortgagees rights. This Court held that it did amount to an acknowledgment and observed thus:"It is thus clear that acknowledgment as prescribed by S. 19 merely renews debt; it does not create a new right of action. It is a mere acknowledgment of the liability in respect of the right in question; it need not be accompanied by a promise to pay either expressly or even by implication. The statement on which a plea of acknowledgment is based must relate to a present subsisting liability though the exact nature or the specific character of the said liability may not be indicated in words. Words used in the acknowledgment must, however, indicate, the existence of jural relationship between the parties such as that of debtor and creditor, and it must appear that the statement is made with the intention to admit such jural relationship. Such intention can be inferred by implication from the nature of the admission and need not be expressed in words. If the statement is fairly clear then the intention to admit jural relationship may be implied from it. The admission in question need not be express but must be made in circumstances and words from which the court can reasonably infer that the person making the admission intended to refer to a subsisting liability as at the date of the statement. In construing words used in the statements made in writing on which a plea of acknowledgment rests oral evidence has been expressly excluded but surrounding circumstances can always be considered. Stated generally courts lean in favour of a liberal construction of such statements though it does not mean that where no admissions made one should be inferred, or where a statement was made clearly without intending to admit the existence of jural relationship such intention could be fastened on the maker of the statement by an involved or far-fetched process of reasoning. Broadly stated that is the effect of the relevant provisions, contained in S. 19, and there is really no substantial difference between the parties as to the true legal position in this matter".16. In our opinion, this case is not of assistance to the appellants. In the appeals before us though there was a personal liability on the defendants under the various decrees, their liability which was created by the composition deed was only on properties in which they had, consequent on the creation of a trust under the composition deed, only a beneficial interest. This new liability had to be discharged by the trustees in whom the legal title to the property vested. Thus there were two different sets of persons who were liable, the defendants and the Trustees and their respective liabilities were distinct. What the defendant No. 2 has referred to is the liability of the Trustees arising under the terms of the deed of composition and could be enforced only against them. To refer to a liability resting on someone else is not to acknowledge ones own liability within the meaning of the word in S. 19. The defendant No. 2 has not even indirectly referred to the decree much less to the liability arising under any of them. In the circumstances we must hold that this letter does not extend the period of limitation.

Decision (1 = appeal accepted, 0 = rejected): 0

Explanation:
0[ds]The Limitation Act is a consolidating and amending statute relating to the limitation of suits, appeals and certain types of applications to courts and must, therefore, be regarded as an exhaustive Code. It is a piece of adjective or procedural law and not of substantive law. Rules of procedure, whatever they may be, are to be applied only to matters to which they are made applicable by the legislature expressly or by necessary implication. They cannot be extended by necessary implication. They cannot be extended by analogy or reference to proceedings of which they do not expressly apply or could be said to apply by necessary implication. It would, therefore, not be correct to apply any of the provisions of the Limitation Act to matters which do not strictly fall within the purview of those provisions. Thus for instance, period of limitation for various kinds of suits, appeals and applications are prescribed in the First Schedule. A proceeding which does not fall under any of the articles in that schedule could not be said to be barred by time on the analogy of a matter which is governed by a particular article. For the same reasons the provisions of Sections 3 to 28 of the Limitation Act cannot be applied to situations which fall outside theirprovisions do not adumbrate any general principles of substantive law nor do they confer any substantive rights on litigants and, therefore, cannot be permitted to have greater application than what is explicit or implicit in them. Suspension of limitation in circumstances of the kind obtaining in these appeals is neither explicit nor implicit in S. 15 upon which reliance is placed on behalf of the appellants. We are, therefore, unable to accept the first argument of Mr.our opinion, this case is not of assistance to the appellants. In the appeals before us though there was a personal liability on the defendants under the various decrees, their liability which was created by the composition deed was only on properties in which they had, consequent on the creation of a trust under the composition deed, only a beneficial interest. This new liability had to be discharged by the trustees in whom the legal title to the property vested. Thus there were two different sets of persons who were liable, the defendants and the Trustees and their respective liabilities were distinct. What the defendant No. 2 has referred to is the liability of the Trustees arising under the terms of the deed of composition and could be enforced only against them. To refer to a liability resting on someone else is not to acknowledge ones own liability within the meaning of the word in S. 19. The defendant No. 2 has not even indirectly referred to the decree much less to the liability arising under any of them. In the circumstances we must hold that this letter does not extend the period of limitation.