Section 2 is the dictionary of the Act. Learn these before anything else.

• Period of limitation — the time limit fixed for a suit, appeal or application by the Schedule.
• Prescribed period — the period of limitation computed after applying the provisions of the Act (i.e. period of limitation + the exclusions/extensions allowed by Sections 4–24).
• Applicant includes a petitioner and persons through whom one derives the right to apply. Application includes a petition.
• Plaintiff / Defendant include persons from or through whom the right to sue or liability is derived, and legal representatives.
• Suit does not include an appeal or an application.
• Tort — a civil wrong which is not exclusively a breach of contract or breach of trust.
• Good faith — nothing is done in good faith if it is not done with due care and attention.
• Easement — includes a right (not from contract) to take and use part of the soil or its produce belonging to another.
• Trustee does not include a benamidar, a mortgagee in possession after the mortgage is satisfied, or a person in wrongful possession without title.

Section 3 is the heart of the Act.

• Subject to Sections 4–24, every suit instituted, appeal preferred or application made after the prescribed period shall be dismissed.
• This happens even if limitation has not been pleaded as a defence — the court must dismiss it on its own.
• So limitation is a duty cast on the court, not merely a defence for the defendant.
• S.3(2) tells us when a suit is "instituted" — ordinarily when the plaint is presented to the proper officer; for a pauper, when the application for leave to sue as a pauper is made.
• A set-off is treated as a separate suit instituted on the date of the main suit; a counter-claim, on the date it is made in court.

Section 4 — Court closed. If the last day of the prescribed period falls on a day the court is closed, the suit/appeal/application may be filed on the day the court reopens. A court is "closed" if during any part of its normal working hours it remains closed that day.

Section 5 — Extension (Condonation of delay).

• Any appeal or application may be admitted after the prescribed period if "sufficient cause" for the delay is shown.
• Section 5 does NOT apply to suits. A suit cannot get its delay condoned under S.5.
• It also does not apply to applications under Order XXI CPC (execution applications).
• Being misled by an order, practice or judgment of the High Court may amount to sufficient cause (Explanation).

Section 6 — Legal disability. If, at the time the limitation period would start, the person entitled to sue (or to apply for execution of a decree) is a minor, insane, or an idiot, he may file after the disability ends, within the same period that would otherwise have been allowed from that starting point.

• If hit by two disabilities together, or a fresh disability before the first ends, time runs from when all disabilities cease.
• If the disability continues till death, the legal representative gets the same period after the death.
• Explanation: "minor" includes a child in the womb.

Section 7 — Disability of one of several persons. Where several are jointly entitled and a valid discharge can be given without the disabled person's concurrence, time runs against all. If no such discharge is possible, time does not run until one can give a discharge or the disability ceases.

Section 8 — Special exceptions (the outer cap). S.6 and S.7 do not apply to pre-emption suits, and in no case can they extend limitation by more than three years from the cessation of disability or death.

Section 9 — Continuous running. "Once time has begun to run, no subsequent disability or inability to sue stops it." Limitation is like a clock that, once started, does not pause for later difficulties. (One proviso: where letters of administration of a creditor's estate are granted to his debtor, running is suspended while the administration continues.)

Section 10 — Suits against trustees. A suit against a person in whom property is vested in trust for a specific purpose (or against his representatives) to follow such trust property is NOT barred by any length of time. Religious/charitable endowment property is treated as trust property.

Section 11 — Contracts made outside India. Suits in India on contracts made in a foreign country are governed by the limitation rules of this Act; a foreign rule of limitation is generally no defence unless it has extinguished the contract and both parties were domiciled there.

These sections tell us which days are left out while counting the period.

• S.12 — Exclusion in legal proceedings: exclude the day from which the period is reckoned; for appeals/revision/review, exclude the day of the judgment and the time requisite for obtaining a copy of the decree/order/judgment/award.
• S.13 — Pauper applications: exclude the time spent prosecuting in good faith an application to sue/appeal as a pauper.
• S.14 — Wrong forum (no jurisdiction): exclude the time spent bona fide, with due diligence, in another civil proceeding for the same matter in a court that could not entertain it due to defect of jurisdiction or like cause.
• S.15 — Other exclusions: time during a stay/injunction; period of notice or time for getting Government consent/sanction; period for receiver/liquidator (with a 3-month rule); time a defendant was absent from India.

These let a fresh limitation period start — but only if done correctly and before the original period expires.

• S.18 — Acknowledgment in writing: if, before the prescribed period expires, the party against whom the right is claimed makes a written, signed acknowledgment of liability, a fresh period runs from the date of signing.
• The acknowledgment may be valid even if it does not state the exact nature of the right, or even if coupled with a refusal to pay.
• S.19 — Part payment: a payment towards a debt or interest, made before expiry by the person liable, starts a fresh period from the date of payment — but the payment (except certain old interest) must be acknowledged in the handwriting of, or in writing signed by, the payer.
• S.20 deals with who can sign/pay (e.g. duly authorised agents, guardians) and clarifies the effect on joint contractors, partners, HUF managers, etc.

Section 17. Where a suit/application is based on the defendant's fraud, or the right is concealed by fraud, or it is for relief from a mistake, or a necessary document is fraudulently concealed, then —

• The period of limitation does not begin to run until the plaintiff/applicant has discovered the fraud or mistake, or could have discovered it with reasonable diligence;
• In case of a concealed document, until he first had the means to produce or compel its production.
• Proviso (protection of innocent buyers): this benefit cannot disturb property bought for value by an innocent purchaser who had no notice of the fraud, mistake or concealment.

Section 25 — Easements by prescription. Where access to light/air, or a way, watercourse, use of water or other easement, has been enjoyed:

• peaceably, openly, as of right, without interruption, for twenty years,
• the right becomes absolute and indefeasible.
• If the property belongs to the Government, the period is thirty years instead of twenty.
• The 20-year period must end within two years before the suit in which the claim is contested.
• An "interruption" must be an actual discontinuance submitted to / acquiesced in for one year after notice.

Section 26 protects a reversioner of the servient land in certain life-interest/long-lease situations by excluding that time from the 20-year count.

Section 22 — Continuing breaches and torts. In a continuing breach of contract or a continuing tort, a fresh period of limitation begins to run at every moment during which the breach or tort continues.

Section 23 — Acts not actionable without special damage. For a suit for compensation where the wrong is actionable only when some specific injury results, time is computed from the time when the injury results.

• A completed wrong (one-time act) → limitation runs once, from the date of the act.
• A continuing wrong (the wrongful state continues, e.g. a continuing obstruction) → fresh limitation keeps arising every moment.

S.16 — Death before accrual of right. If a person dies before the right to sue accrues (or the right accrues only on death), limitation is computed from when there is a legal representative capable of suing or being sued. (This does not apply to pre-emption suits or suits for possession of immovable property / hereditary office.)

S.21 — Adding or substituting a party. When a new plaintiff or defendant is added after the suit is instituted, the suit is deemed instituted against him only from the date he was made a party — unless the omission was due to a bona fide mistake, when the court may relate it back to an earlier date.

S.24 — Computation of time in instruments. All instruments are deemed to be made with reference to the Gregorian calendar for the purposes of this Act.

The Schedule [see S.2(j) and S.3] is a big table with three columns: (1) description of the suit/appeal/application, (2) period of limitation, (3) time from which the period begins to run. It is divided into three Divisions:

• First Division — Suits (Articles 1 to 113).
• Second Division — Appeals (Articles 114 to 117).
• Third Division — Applications (Articles 118 to 137).

Most useful recurring periods to memorise:

• 3 years — most contract/account/money suits; Art 113 (residuary suit) and Art 137 (residuary application).
• 12 years — possession of immovable property based on title (Art 65); execution of a decree (Art 136); mortgage suits for sale/possession.
• 30 years — mortgagor to redeem (Art 61(a)); mortgagee for foreclosure (Art 63(a)); Government suits (Art 112).
• 1 year — torts in Part VII (Art 72–80) and pre-emption (Art 97).
• 90 days — appeal to a High Court from a decree/order (Art 116(a)); 30 days — appeal to other courts (Art 116(b)).

S.27 — Extinguishment of right to property. When the limitation period for a suit for possession of property ends, the person's right to that property is extinguished. This is the statutory basis of adverse possession — and the key exception to "limitation bars remedy, not right".

S.29 — Savings.

• Nothing in the Act affects S.25 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872.
• Where a special or local law prescribes a different period, S.3 applies as if that period were in the Schedule; Sections 4–24 apply only so far as they are not expressly excluded by that special/local law.
• The Act generally does not apply to suits/proceedings under marriage and divorce law (save as otherwise provided).

S.30–S.31 are transitional provisions dealing with suits/appeals whose period under the old 1908 Act was shorter, and with barred or pending matters at the commencement of the 1963 Act. S.28 and S.32 stand repealed.