Shobha Vasant Bhoir & Ors. Vs Soni @ Vandana Gurumukhdas Jagiasi & Ors. (Supreme Court of India)
Supreme Court Rejects 38-Year-Old Specific Performance Suit as Time-Barred; Plaint Rejected at Threshold
The Supreme Court has held that a specific performance suit filed after an unexplained delay of 38 years is clearly barred by limitation and deserves to be rejected at the threshold under Order VII Rule 11(d) of the Code of Civil Procedure. Setting aside the orders of the Trial Court and the Bombay High Court, the Court observed that a litigant who remains silent for decades cannot revive a stale claim through clever drafting of the plaint.
The dispute arose from an unregistered agreement to sell dated 21.08.1984, whereas the suit for specific performance was instituted only in 2022. The Court found that the plaint contained no satisfactory explanation for the extraordinary delay. Referring to Article 54 of the Limitation Act, 1963, the Court reiterated that a suit for specific performance must ordinarily be filed within three years from the date when the right to sue first accrues.
Reaffirming the settled principles governing Order VII Rule 11 CPC, the Supreme Court observed that while deciding an application for rejection of the plaint, the Court must confine itself to the averments in the plaint. If, on a meaningful reading, the suit is manifestly barred by law, the Court has a duty to terminate the litigation at the threshold rather than permit unnecessary trial. The judgment relies on earlier decisions including Dahiben v. Arvindbhai Kalyanji Bhanusali, Mukund Bhavan Trust, and other precedents emphasising that courts must prevent abuse of the judicial process.
The Court also rejected the contention that a 2021 High Court order gave rise to a fresh cause of action or extended the limitation period. It held that the High Court had merely observed that the plaintiffs had not instituted substantive civil proceedings till then, and such an observation could not create a fresh period of limitation. Accordingly, the Supreme Court held that the suit was an abuse of the process of law, allowed the appeal, and rejected the plaint as being barred by limitation.
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