Limitation in Partition Suit Cannot Be Decided Without Evidence: Karnataka High Court

A suit for partition of ancestral property cannot be thrown out on grounds of limitation at a preliminary stage — before a single witness  is examined — when the question of which limitation period applies is itself a contested issue of fact and law. The Karnataka High Court has firmly reaffirmed this principle while setting aside a trial court order that dismissed a decades-old partition dispute without recording any evidence.

A Division Bench of Justice Jayant Banerji and Justice K.V. Aravind allowed the plaintiffs' first appeal and remanded the matter for full trial, holding that the applicability of Article 110 of the Limitation Act, 1963 — which provides a twelve-year window for a person excluded from joint family property — could not be brushed aside at the threshold without the parties having led evidence.

The suit traces back to a multi-generational property dispute over a multi-storied commercial building at Jamma Masjid Road (Old Poor House Road), Bengaluru. The property originally came to late Sri B.C. Ramalingam through a registered partition deed of 1940. After Ramalingam's death, his son Sri B.R. Ram inherited it. Ram died intestate on 30 September 2001, leaving behind the plaintiffs — his children and son-in-law — and the defendants, who are the heirs of Ram's deceased son Sri Gopinath.

The defendants set up a Will dated 3 March 1956 allegedly executed by Ramalingam bequeathing the property to his grandson Gopinath. The plaintiffs challenged the Will and filed a suit in 2006 for partition of a 17/24th share, declaration that the Will was not binding on them, and ancillary reliefs.

The trial court had earlier held the suit was within time, but that order was set aside by the High Court in revision and the matter was remanded. After remand, the trial court decided the limitation issue as a preliminary question — without recording evidence — and dismissed the suit as barred under Article 113 of the Limitation Act, which provides only a three-year limitation period for residuary suits.

The central question before the Division Bench was whether the trial court was justified in deciding the limitation issue as a preliminary point before evidence was led, and whether Article 110 (twelve years, for enforcing a right to share in joint family property) or Article 113 (three years, residuary) governed the suit.

Limitation Is a Mixed Question — Cannot Be Decided in Vacuum

The Court found the trial court's approach fundamentally flawed. Relying on the Supreme Court's binding pronouncement in Shakti Bhog Food Industries Ltd. v. Central Bank of India (2020) 17 SCC 260, the Bench reiterated that "the factum of the suit being barred by limitation, ordinarily, would be a mixed question of fact and law." The trial court had selectively relied on admitted and undisputed facts while ignoring the larger unresolved question of which Article of limitation actually applied. "The trial Court has failed to advert and analyze the averments in the plaint, but selectively took notice of the assertions," the High Court found.

Article 110 — The Twelve-Year Period Cannot Be Ignored

The Court found direct support in Mohinder Kumar Mehra v. Roop Rani Mehra (2018) 2 SCC 132, where the Supreme Court had considered Article 110 of the Limitation Act, 1963 — which is pari materia to Article 127 of the 1908 Act — and held that whether a coparcener's claim to enforce a right to share in joint family property attracts the twelve-year period "could have been decided only after considering the evidence led by the parties." The Supreme Court had specifically observed: "At the stage of considering the amendment in the facts of the present case, it was too early to come to a conclusion that limitation was only three years and not twelve years as claimed by the plaintiff."

The High Court applied this directly to the facts before it. The plaintiffs claimed to be coparceners of the defendants, and their claim rested on the registered partition deed of 1940 under which the suit property had devolved on Sri Ramalingam — a fact not disputed by the defendants. Given this foundation, whether the plaintiffs were persons "excluded from joint family property" attracting Article 110's twelve-year period was a live and serious question. "The aspect whether Article 110 of the Limitation Act, 1963 would apply in the facts and circumstances of the present case, which provision provides the period of limitation of twelve years, would require adjudication by the trial Court while deciding Issue No. 11, as it is a mixed question of law and fact, and which would require evidence to be led," the Court held.

Trial Court's Error — Deciding Issue Before Evidence

The core error, the Court found, was deciding a preliminary issue that was not amenable to decision purely on admitted facts. While limitation issues may technically be framed as preliminary issues under the Code of Civil Procedure, such issues can be decided at that stage only when the relevant facts are entirely undisputed and no contested legal question turns on evidence. Where — as here — the applicable Article of limitation was itself disputed, the trial court had no business shutting the suit before hearing the parties on evidence. "The issue No. 11 could not have been decided by the Trial Court prior to the evidence having been led in the trial," the Bench concluded.

The Division Bench set aside the trial court's order of dismissal dated 7 November 2012 in O.S. No. 6732/2006 and remanded the matter for trial. The parties were directed to appear before the jurisdictional trial court on 4 June 2026, with the court required to fix a date for recording of evidence. Issue No. 11 on limitation is to be decided only after evidence is led, along with all other framed issues.

The judgment serves as a reminder to trial courts that preliminary issue adjudication is a tool for expedition, not for pre-empting parties from a full hearing on contested questions — particularly where a twelve-year limitation period may be available and its applicability turns on findings of fact that only a trial can produce.

Date of Decision: 10 April 2026