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TMI Blog1912 (12) TMI 1X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 08 which provides a period of three years from the date the rent became due. 2. The contention in second appeal is that the rent being due under a registered instrument and six years having been allowed for such a suit according to the decisions of this Court, holding Article 116 of the Schedule to the Limitation Act to be applicable to such a suit, and the Estates Land Act having come into force (on 1st July 1908) only after the three years allowed under the Act had elapsed from the date of the rent accruing due, the Act ought to be held to be not applicable to the case. The question has already been the subject of consideration in this Court in Sundram Iyer v. Muthnganapatigal (1912) M.W.N. 652 before a Bench consisting of Miller and A ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Legislature may think fit from time to time to prescribe. It is at the same time a well established principle that unless the terms of a statute expressly so provide or necessarily require it, retrospective operation will not be given to a statute so as to affect, alter or destroy any vested right. See Section 6 Clause (e) of the Indian General Clauses Act and Section 8 Clause (c) of Madras Act I of 1891. For, to do so would result in great injustice, and it would be presumed that the Legislature did not intend to deprive any person of a right previously vested in him. The general rule that statutes relating to processual law have retrospective operation is as much subject to this important qualification as statutes dealing with substantiv ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rights is not confined to substantive rights but extends equally, to remedial rights or rights of action including rights of appeal, an appeal being regarded as a continuation of the proceedings in the Court of first instance. In Wright v. Hale (1860) 6 H. N. 227 the question was whether the plaintiff in the action was disentitled to costs under 23 and 24 Vic., C. 126, Section 34, according to which a plaintiff in an action for an alleged wrong recovering a verdict for less than 65 should not be entitled to any costs. Channal, B., observes: In dealing with Acts of Parliament which have the effect of taking away rights of action, we ought not to construe them as having a retrospective operation, unless it appears clearly that such was the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... especting antecedent damages or injuries might be taken before the proper tribunal. See also Inas v. London and South Western Railway Company (1868) L.R. 4 C.P. 17 where the soundness of this exception was questioned in Moon v. Durden (1848 ) 2 Ex. 22 by Rolfe, B. In re Joseph Suche and Co. Limited 1 Ch. D. 48, Jessell, M.R. again enunciated this rule as follows: It is a general rule that, when a Legislature alters the rights of parties by taking away or conferring any rights of action, its enactments, unless in express terms they apply to pending actions, do not affect them. His Lordship held that the right of a creditor to prove his debt in the winding-up of a Company was not a mere matter of procedure and that it was not distinguished ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... te Todd; In re Ashcroft 19 Q.B.D. 186 it was held that Section 14 of the Mercantile Law Amendment Act, 1856, which provided that a debtor shall not lose the benefit of the statutory limitations by his co-debtors' payment of interest or part-payment of principal would not affect the efficacy of such payments made before the Act is passed, a decision which is hardly consistent with Towler v. Chatterton (1829) 6 Bing. 258 and The Queen v. The Leeds and Bradford Railway Company (1852) 21 L.J.M.C. 193. On principle, therefore, the present case must be regarded as one in which a vested right of action would be destroyed by the application of the Estates Land Act to it. The language of Section 210 does not in terms apply to such a case. It is ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... instrument. See Ambalavana Pandaram v. Vaguran 19 M.k 52. This interpretation placed on the general statute of limitation apparently escaped the attention of the Legislature. We do not think that there is any force in the argument that the Revenue Court has no jurisdiction to entertain suits for breach of contract and that it, therefore, could not apply Article 116 of the Limitation Act in a suit for rent before it. The effect according to the judicial interpretation of Article 116 is that a suit for rent is a suit for a breach of contract and there can be no difficulty in a Revenue Court applying the proper rule of limitation applicable to a suit for rent coming before it. Section 211 Clause 2 of the Madras Estates Land Act makes the prov ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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