Everyone can state the period. The work is in the trigger date, the exclusions, and the day the court happened to be closed.
Computing limitation means four things in order: fix the trigger date, apply the prescribed period, apply the statutory exclusions, and then roll the last day forward if the court is closed. Lawgger runs 21 statutory clocks that do this automatically, including weekends, gazetted holidays and court vacations, and flags where condonation would be needed.
The order matters. Applying an exclusion before the period is fixed, or rolling a date before the exclusions are applied, produces a date that is confidently wrong.
Establish the date on which the right to sue accrued, or from which the period is expressly counted for that proceeding — the date of the decree, of knowledge, of dishonour, of the award, of the cause of action. Everything downstream depends on this date. The common error: using the date a document was received in chambers rather than the date the statute counts from. The two are frequently weeks apart.
Identify the article of the Schedule to the Limitation Act 1963, or the special statute, that governs this proceeding, and apply the period it prescribes. Special statutes routinely displace the general position and sometimes exclude condonation entirely. The common error: applying the general three-year period to a proceeding that has its own, shorter clock written into its own Act.
Exclude what the Act allows to be excluded — under section 12, the time requisite for obtaining a copy of the decree, sentence or order appealed from; under section 14, time spent bona fide prosecuting the same matter before a court without jurisdiction. The common error: treating "time requisite" as the time actually taken. It is the time properly required, and the dates on the copy application are what establish it.
If the last day falls on a day the court is closed, section 4 permits the filing to be made on the day the court reopens. This is not an extension of the period; it is permission to file on the reopening day. The common error: assuming a court is open. Weekends, gazetted holidays, local holidays and vacations differ from court to court, and it is the calendar of your court that decides.
Done in this sequence you get a date. Done in any other sequence you get an argument. The fourth step is the one that turns a rule into a filing date, and it is the only one that requires information the Limitation Act does not contain.
Stated as the general position under the Limitation Act 1963. Special statutes may vary or exclude any of them, so verify the provision that governs your proceeding.
| Situation | Effect on the clock | What still has to be done |
|---|---|---|
| Last day falls when the court is closed Section 4 |
The period is not extended, but the suit, appeal or application may be instituted on the day the court reopens. | Establish the court's actual calendar for that period, including vacations and local holidays. Do not rely on a national holiday list. |
| Time taken to obtain a certified copy Section 12 |
In computing the period for an appeal and certain applications, the time requisite for obtaining a copy of the decree, sentence or order is excluded. | Keep the copy application and delivery dates on record. What is excluded is the time requisite, not simply the time that passed. |
| Time spent before a court without jurisdiction Section 14 |
Time spent bona fide prosecuting the same matter, with due diligence, in a court unable to entertain it may be excluded. | Show good faith and due diligence, and show that the earlier proceeding was on the same matter. This is pleaded and proved, not assumed. |
| Filing after the period has expired Section 5 |
An appeal or application may still be admitted if sufficient cause for the delay is shown. Discretionary, and not available for suits. | File an application explaining the delay along with the main matter, supported by an affidavit. Check whether the special statute permits condonation at all. |
The pattern across all four is the same: each of them changes the date, and each of them requires something to be filed, proved or established. None of them operates by itself. That is why a limitation position is worked out at the start of a matter and written into the diary, not reconstructed on the last available afternoon.
Stated in outline only. The computed date for a particular matter depends on the trigger date, the exclusions and the court's calendar — which is what the app does.
The period runs from the date of the decree or order, with the time requisite for obtaining a certified copy excluded under section 12. The period differs according to the court appealed to and the statute under which the appeal lies. Identify the governing article of the Schedule, or the special statute, before computing.
Three clocks run in sequence: the demand notice within thirty days of receiving information of dishonour from the bank; fifteen days from receipt of the notice for the drawer to pay; and the complaint within one month of the expiry of that fifteen-day period. Each stage depends on a date that has to be established from the material.
An application to set aside an arbitral award under section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 runs from receipt of the award, with a strictly limited further window on sufficient cause. This is one of the clocks where the general condonation position does not apply, so the date is unusually unforgiving.
A complaint under the Consumer Protection Act 2019 runs from the date on which the cause of action arose, with the commission empowered to admit a later complaint where sufficient cause is shown and reasons are recorded. Fixing the cause-of-action date is usually the contested part, not the arithmetic.
Appeals under special statutes to tribunals and appellate authorities carry their own periods, their own trigger events and their own condonation provisions. Several exclude condonation beyond a fixed outer limit. The Limitation Act applies only so far as the special statute allows, so read that statute first.
Execution has its own long clock running from the date of the decree, or from a later date where the decree directs payment or delivery at a stated time. It is long enough that it is routinely forgotten, and it is the deadline most often discovered after it has passed. What execution involves.
The Limitation Act tells you the period. It does not tell you whether the court is open on the day the period ends, and that is the fact that decides the filing date.
Indian courts do not share a calendar. Each High Court sets its own vacations and its own list of holidays, and district courts within a State follow their own. A local holiday observed in one State is an ordinary working day in another. A trigger date that produces a Tuesday deadline in one court can produce a deadline nine days later in another, purely because of when that court reopens. Some courts have adopted the language of partial court working days in place of "vacation", with limited sittings rather than closure — which changes the analysis again.
Two practical consequences follow. First, a limitation date computed from a national holiday list is not reliable for any particular court. Second, a chamber practising across several courts is holding several different calendars at once, and the deadline that goes wrong is usually the one in the court the chamber visits least.
Lawgger follows the calendars of the courts it covers — 527 courts and 426 benches across the Supreme Court, all 25 High Courts and the tribunals, and roughly 700 district courts across 722 districts. That is the same coverage behind cause lists and live display boards, and it is why a computed date can account for a court being closed rather than assuming it is open. See the courts covered.
This page explains the method. The computation happens in the app, because it needs the matter type, the trigger date and the court's calendar — none of which a static page has.
Choose the matter type and enter the trigger date. Lawgger runs 21 statutory clocks covering the proceedings advocates deal with most, applies the period, and returns a date rather than a rule.
The date returned already accounts for weekends, gazetted holidays and the vacations of the court concerned. Where the last day falls on a closed day, the date shown is the reopening day, with the closure named.
Where a date has passed or is about to, the position is flagged so that a section 5 application is considered while there is still time to prepare one — rather than discovered when the filing is rejected.
The deadline is written into the matter and into the diary alongside hearings and tasks, so it appears in the same place as everything else in that file. How the practice side works.
To be explicit: nothing on this marketing page computes a date. There is no calculator on this website and there is no free public lookup here. The computation is in the app, where the matter, the court and the calendar are known. Open Lawgger — every plan starts with a 14-day free trial with no card, and after that it is Rs 1,999 a month or Rs 19,999 a year.
Deadlines sit next to case tracking by CNR, so a next date that changes on the court record reaches the diary rather than staying in a note from the last hearing.
This page explains how limitation is computed under Indian law in general terms. It is not legal advice, and it does not state the limitation period applicable to any particular matter. Periods, exclusions and the availability of condonation vary with the proceeding and with the statute that governs it, and several special statutes displace the general position entirely.
Lawgger is a software company. It is not a law firm, it does not offer or provide legal services, and it does not act in any matter. A date returned by the app is a computed result offered as a research and practice aid; the advocate handling the matter is the person who verifies it against the governing provision and the court's own calendar before relying on it.
Where a limitation question is contested — the trigger date, whether an exclusion applies, whether condonation is available at all — it is a question of law on the facts of that matter, and it is decided by reading the provision and the authority on it. Checking that the authority you rely on is still good law is part of the same exercise. How Lawgger handles accuracy and your data.
In four steps. Fix the trigger date from which the period runs. Apply the period prescribed for that proceeding by the Schedule to the Limitation Act 1963 or by the special statute. Apply the statutory exclusions the Act allows. Then, if the last day falls on a day the court is closed, roll the date forward to the day the court reopens.
Section 4 of the Limitation Act 1963 provides that where the prescribed period expires on a day when the court is closed, the suit, appeal or application may be instituted on the day the court reopens. It does not extend the period; it permits filing on the reopening day. The court's own calendar therefore has to be known rather than assumed.
A vacation does not extend the prescribed period. It matters only where the last day falls within a period when the court is closed, in which case section 4 allows the filing to be made on the reopening day. Vacation dates differ between courts, so the same trigger date can produce different filing dates in different courts.
Condonation of delay is the court's power under section 5 of the Limitation Act 1963 to admit an appeal or application filed after the prescribed period where sufficient cause for not filing in time is shown. It is discretionary, it is not available for suits, and several special statutes restrict or exclude it. The application is filed along with the main matter. Glossary entry.
Section 12 of the Limitation Act 1963 provides for exclusion of time in computing the period for an appeal and certain applications, including the time requisite for obtaining a copy of the decree, sentence or order appealed from. What is excluded is the time requisite, which is not the same as the time actually taken, so the copy application dates matter.
Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act 1881 works in three stages. The demand notice must be given within thirty days of receiving information of dishonour from the bank. The drawer then has fifteen days from receipt of the notice to pay. The complaint is filed within one month of the expiry of those fifteen days. Each date has to be established from the material.
The period depends on the proceeding and on the statute under which the appeal lies. Appeals under the Code of Civil Procedure to a High Court, and appeals to other courts, carry different periods under the Schedule to the Limitation Act 1963, and many special statutes prescribe their own. Identify the governing article, or the special statute, before computing.
This page explains the method; it does not compute a date, because a date requires the matter type, the trigger date and the court's own calendar. Lawgger runs 21 statutory clocks in the app: enter the trigger date and matter type and it returns the due date with weekends, gazetted holidays and court vacations already rolled, plus a condonation flag where relevant.
Yes. A computed deadline is written into the matter and into the diary, so it sits alongside hearings and tasks rather than in a separate note. Case tracking by CNR brings next dates in from the official court record, so the diary reflects the record rather than what was written down after the last hearing. Case tracking.
21 statutory clocks, weekends and court vacations already rolled, condonation flagged, and the date written straight into the matter. A 14-day free trial of the full product, no card required.