Minor Subir Ranjan Mondal vs Sita Nath Mukherjee on 14 May, 1993
34. I have already discussed the different provisions of the Act which are relevant for our purpose to decide the question in hand. As discussed earlier, insertions 14(H), 14(O), 15(A), 19 and 51(A)(5) of the Act, Sections of the Limitation Act has been made "expressly applicable" by the legislature, whereas in the rest of the Sections of the Act, as referred to hereinabove, Section 5 of the Limitation Act has neither been expressly made applicable nor has been excluded by express reference. From this an inference can be drawn that if it was the intention of the legislature to apply Section 5 of the Limitation Act to Section 8 of the Act, then there was no reason for it to apply Section 5 of the Limitation Act expressly to some of the provisions of the Act only in view of the observations made by the Supreme Court in Hukumdev Narain Yadav's case that if none of the Sections 4 to 24 (both inclusive) of the Limitation Act are excluded, all of them would become applicable by virtue of Section 29(2) of the Limitation Act. Therefore, I am of the opinion that the legislature, whenever it thought fit and proper, applied Section 5 of the Limitation Act to the relevant provisions of the Act and in the case of Section 8 of the Act, the legislature thought it fit and proper not to make an express reference applying Section 5 of the Limitation Act to an "application" under Section 8 of the Act and also omitted intentionally its application to Section 8 of the Act. In this connection, it is also to be noted, as discussed earlier, that before the amendment of the Act, an application for pre-emption had to be presented before a Revenue Officer, who was admittedly not a "Court" and now after the amendment, the presentation of an "application" under Section 8 of the Act is to be made before a "Munsif having territorial jurisdiction" and the appeal against an order passed under Section 8 of the Act by a "Munsif having territorial jurisdiction" has to be preferred under Section 9(6) of the Act before the "District Judge having jurisdiction over the area in which the land is situated". Taking into consideration Section 8 of the Act as it stood before and after its amendment and the
discussions made hereinabove, there is no doubt in my mind that after the amendment of Section 8 of the Act, only the forum of presentation of an application under Section 8 of the Act had been changed by the legislature although it was known to the legislature at the time of amending Section 8 that by judicial decisions pronounced before its amendment, Section 5 of the Limitation Act was not made applicable to an "application" under Section 8 of the Act because the "Revenue Officer" was not considered, by such judicial decisions, as "Court". Although this was very much known to the legislature, even then it was not deemed necessary 10 make a provision applying Section 5 of the Limitation Act to Section 8 of the Act. It is also significant that when the Act was amended and the jurisdiction was given to the "Munsif having territorial jurisdiction" to entertain and try a pre-emption petition under Section 8 of the Act, a provision applying Section 5 of the Limitation Act to Section 8 of the Act was not enacted. This definitely expresses the intention of the legislature not to confer the power to condone any delay in the presentation of the preemption application.