Limitation must be decided with other issues when its determination depends on disputed facts.

Respondent No. 1 filed O.S. No. 5810/2016 seeking declaration, cancellation of sale deeds and recovery of possession.

The trial court framed limitation as a preliminary issue and held that the suit was within time.

Defendant No. 5, the petitioner in this revision, challenged that finding, arguing that the plaintiff had notice of his predecessor’s title claim by 1985, including through an earlier suit concerning the relevant land.

The plaintiff disputed the petitioner’s account, including the relationship between the survey numbers involved, and maintained that limitation had been correctly decided.

1. Whether the limitation issue could properly be decided as a preliminary issue on the competing parties’ claims concerning the survey numbers and prior notice.

2. Whether the trial court’s finding that the suit was within limitation should be set aside and the issue considered after evidence.

The revision was brought under Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

It applied the case-specific principle that where determination of limitation depends on disputed factual matters—including the parties’ competing positions about the relevant survey numbers and prior knowledge—the issue should be considered with the other issues after the parties have had an opportunity to adduce evidence.

The petitioner relied on the 1985 suit to argue that the plaintiff had long-standing notice of the title claim, while the plaintiff disputed that the earlier suit concerned the same land and asserted that it involved different survey numbers.

Because resolving that dispute required the trial court to determine the relationship between the properties and consider the evidence, the High Court held that limitation could not be decided as a preliminary issue on the existing record.

It therefore directed that the issue be considered alongside the other issues after evidence is adduced.

It directed the trial court to consider limitation with the other issues after giving both parties a reasonable opportunity to adduce evidence.

All contentions were left open, and the Court expressed no opinion on the merits.