Bhattacharjee, J.:— The only question that arises for determination in this appeal is whether the learned District Judge is right in holding that the execution of the money-decree, passed in 1976 but put into execution for the first time in 1982, is not barred by limitation. In the rest of India where the present Limitation Act, 1963, governs the matter, the execution would not obviously be barred by time as Art. 136 of that Act provides a period of 12 years as the period of limitation for the execution of any such decree. But the Limitation Act of 1963, has not yet been extended to the State of Sikkim and, therefore, those provisions are not available here.
2. Previous to the Limitation Act, 1963, the Law on the point in the rest of India was contained in S. 48 of the C.P.C 1908, read with Art. 182 of the preceding Limitation Act of 1908 and though S. 48 of the Code has been repealed by S. 28 of the Limitation Act of 1963 with effect from 1-1-1964, Art. 136 thereof has substantially reproduced the provisions of the repealed S. 48(1) of the Code. The provisions of S. 48 of the Code were, like the provisions of Art. 136 of the present Limitation Act of 1963, simple enough and the Section only provided the outer period or the outer time-limit of 12 years after which no fresh application for execution of decree could be entertained. Article 182 of the Limitation Act, 1908, however, required, the first application for execution of decree to be made within three years and each successive application to be made within three years from the date of the final order passed on the last application, but all these exercises were to be made within the outer time-limit of 12 years fixed under S. 48 of the C.P.C This Art. 182 of the Limitation Act of 1908, having been found to be a veritable and prolific source of endless and fruitless litigations, has been rejected by the present Act of 1963, which, as already noted, has substantially reproduced the provisions of S. 48(1) of the C.P.C in Art. 136 of the Act, while removing the former provisions from the Code of Civil Procedure and accordingly the outer period or time-limit of 12 years as fixed by S. 48(1) of the C.P.C has now become the only period of limitation for execution of decree and it is no longer necessary to keep the execution alive by successive applications within 3 years as was required by the Art. 182 of the Limitation Act, 1908.
3. In Sikkim, however, the preceding Limitation Act of 1908, containing Art. 182, was not extended or adopted at any point of time and the sketchy and the skeletal Sikkim Law of Limitation does not provide any period whatsoever for the application for the execution of a decree. The provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure of 1908, however, have all along been applied by the Courts in Sikkim in matters relating to Civil Procedure. As pointed out by this Court in Sagarmull Agarwal v. Union of India, AIR 1980 Sikkim 22 at 27, law need not invariably flow from a formal legislative authority and may be, as defined by Salmond, “the body of principles recognised and applied by the State in the administration of justice” and “rules recognised and acted on by Courts of Justice” and it has been pointed out further that there could be “no doubt that those provisions of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908, which have been consistently followed, applied, recognised and acted upon by the Courts of Sikkim have become the laws of Sikkim, notwithstanding the Baconian dictum that the function of the Court is not ‘jus dare’ but only ‘jus dicere’. In the Division Bench decision of this Court in Jas Bahadur Rai v. Putra Dhan Rai, (1978) 3 Sikkim LJ 6 at 8 : AIR 1981 NOC 121, it was observed that “if this is characterised as making of laws by the Courts, it may be pointed out that the very same thing was done by the Courts in India during the early British period when the legislative laws in India were scanty and the Courts in India freely followed and adopted the principles of English Law in deciding points not covered by the Indian Laws in force” and it was observed further that “the Courts in Sikkim would have to continue to do that amount of law-making until such time when direct legislative laws will begin to hold and occupy the field.” It may, however, be noted that the concerned authority has now been able to find time to extend the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, to Sikkim by Notification dated 16th Oct. 1982, but is again taking time to enforce the same by issuing necessary notification.
4. But in Sikkim, while the Courts made the provisions of the Civil Procedure Code available to themselves at least from the time when this High Court was established by and under the Proclamation of 1955, the provisions of the Limitation Act, 1908, were never brought in or adopted or acted upon by them and in Sikkim, therefore, the provisions of S. 48 of the Civil Procedure Code have been applied without any impact thereon of Art. 182 of the Limitation Act, 1908 and the period fixed for application for execution of decree in Sikkim, therefore, have all along been 12 years as provided by S. 48 of the Code of Civil Procedure, without being circumscribed by Art. 182 of the Limitation Act of 1908, requiring the first application to be made within 3 years. That being so, the application for execution in this case having been made within 6 years and, therefore, long before 12 years, is not barred by time.
5. Mr. B.C Sharma, the learned counsel for the appellant/judgment-debtor has placed strong reliance in the Court below and also in this Court on a set of provisions labelled as Sikkim Debt Laws, 1910, Cl. VI whereof reads that “a decree shall ordinarily become void, except as regards pending proceedings, at the end of 3 years.” These provisions appear to have been passed by the then Sikkim Council as Resolution in a meeting held on 7th Nov., 1910 and amended by later Resolutions in 1913. We have not been able to trace anything anywhere which would go to show that the then Sikkim Council was a law-making organ and all that can be ascertained is that it used to act as an Advisory body to the then Ruler of Sikkim. Even assuming the Council to be a Legislative Body, a resolution by such body cannot be equated with legislation unless that was the recognised mode or method of law-making in Sikkim. The resolution also bears no indication of having received the assent of the Ruler without which no legislative measures could acquire the force of law, unless the Ruler himself provided or directed to that effect and we have not been able to ascertain any such provision of direction.
6. Of these provisions, of which we have been furnished with ordinary typed copies only, no authorised and/or printed version could be traced. The Sikkim Durbar Gazette started being published from 1949-1950 only and, therefore, there could be no occasion for these provisions to be published therein. Not that, no publication, no law; but that publicity is and should be the hallmark of all legislative process. Vivian Bose, J., in the Supreme Court decision in Harla v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1951 SC 467 at 468 declared that “it would be against the principles of natural justice to permit the subjects of a State to be punished or penalised by laws of which they had no knowledge and of which they could not even with exercise of reasonable diligence have acquired any knowledge” and that “natural justice requires that before a law can become operative, it must be promulgated or published” and “it must be broadcast in some recognizable way so that all men may know what it is; or, at the very least, there must be some special rule or regulation or customary channel by or through which such knowledge can be acquired with the exercise of due and reasonable diligence.” These observations have been quoted with approval by Krishna Iyer, J., in Sunil Batra v. Delhi Administration, AIR 1978 SC 1675 at 1678 where the learned Judge has further observed that “one of the paramount requirements of valid law is that it must be within the cognizance of the community if a competent search were made of it” and that the “cult of the occult is not the rule of law even as access to law is integral to our system.” Allen has, however, observed (vide, “Law and Orders” — 2nd Edn. pp. 132-133) that “on the face of it, it would seem reasonable that legislation of any kind should not be binding until it has somehow been ‘made known’ to the public, but that is not the rule of law, and if it were, the automatic cogency of a Statute which has received the royal assent would be seriously and most inconveniently impaired” and these observations have been cited with approval by Ayyangar, j., in State Of Maharashtra v. Mayer Hans George ., AIR 1965 SC 722 at 742. But, as already noted, there is nothing on record to show that the provisions of the Sikkim Debt Laws, 1910, of which typed copies only could be produced before us, was a legislation which received the assent of the Ruler of Sikkim. Generally a legislative enactment, even apart from its being published in the Official Gazette, is debated upon and passed by accredited representatives of the people in the Legislature and therefore, received or is expected to receive sonic sort of publicity during its passage in the legislature. In Harla v. State of Rajasthan, (AIR 1978 SC 467) (supra) it was decided that in the absence of some specific law or custom, a resolution of the Council of Ministers in the Jaipur State without further publication or promulgation would not be sufficient to make it operative as law and this view cannot be said to have been departed or dissented from in State Of Maharashtra v. Mayer Hans George . (supra). The points decided in Mayer Hans George (supra), which are material for our purpose, are that the ‘made known’ theory cannot require publication of any Indian Law in a foreign country, even if foreigners are likely to be affected, but that, even in the absence of statutory requirement of publication, the rule seems to be that “it is necessary that it should be published in the usual form, i.e by publication within the country in such media as is generally adopted to notify to all the persons concerned the making of rules” (supra at 745). We are not aware of any law or custom operating in Sikkim according to which a resolution of the Sikkim Council, without royal assent and without publication, would have nevertheless become effective as law. But even otherwise, the execution of the decree in the present case would not be barred by time, even if Cl. VI of Sikkim Debt Laws is treated as effective law.
7. Clause VI of the Sikkim Debt Laws purports to provide that “a decree shall ordinarily become void, except as regards pending proceedings, at the end of 3 years.” The word “ordinarily” would, as pointed out by the Kerala Full Bench in Aldo Maria Patroni v. E.C Kesavan, AIR 1965 Ker 75 at 77, obviously clothe the provisions with some amount of elasticity and, as observed by a five-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court in Kailash Chandra v. Union of India, AIR 1961 SC 1346 at 1349, the expression “ordinarily” means “in the large majority of cases, but not invariably” and, therefore, the limitation of 3 years sought to be provided by Cl. VI, not being invariable, may be varied or extended for good and sufficient cause. Have we in this case such good and sufficient cause to extend the ordinary period of limitation of 3 years fixed by Cl. VI? In view of the clear and categorical affidavit filed by Mr. R.K Agarwala, the learned Advocate who undisputedly advised the respondent/decree-holder as to the period of limitation available for execution of the decree, we have no doubt that we have good reasons to be satisfied that there are good and sufficient cause to extend the period, if such extention is necessary. Mr. Agarwala has categorically sworn that he conducted the original suit filed by the decree-holder which, as already noted, was decreed in 1976, that sometime in the last part of 1977 the decree-holder inquired of him about the time limit for putting the said decree in execution and that Mr. Agarwala told him that the time limit was 12 years. Mr. Agarwala has further stated that he tendered his advice in good faith in accordance with the law operating in the rest of India and prior to the written objection filed by the Appellant/Judgment-debtor, he had no knowledge that there was any law in Sikkim in the shape of Sikkim Debt Laws, whereunder execution was to be put in ordinarily within 3 years. As pointed out in the Division Bench decision of this Court in Durga Prasad v. Palden-Lama, AIR 1981 Sikkim 49 at 53-54, though it cannot always be put in strait-jacket of a general doctrine of invariable and universal application, it has been repeatedly held by the Courts that a mistake or mistaken advise of a lawyer may very often be a good ground for condoning the delay resulting from such mistaken advise. Relying on the Privy Council decision in Kunwar Rajendra Bahadur v. Raj Rajeswar Bali, AIR 1937 PC 276, it has been held by the Supreme Court in State of West Bengal v. Howrah Municipality, AIR 1972 SC 749 at 757 that if a party had acted in a particular manner on a wrong advice given by a legal adviser, he cannot be guilty of negligence so as to disentitle him from pleading sufficient cause for extension of the period of limitation. Relying on the aforesaid Privy Council and the Supreme Court decisions, it has again been held by the Supreme Court in Punjabi University v. A.S Ganesh, AIR 1972 SC 1973 at 1974-1975 that a mistake by a lawyer is a good ground for condoning the delay. We have no doubt that even assuming the Sikkim Debt Laws, 1910 to be a piece of valid law, the lack of knowledge of such an unpublished and esoteric law on the part of a lawyer would be a good ground for condoning the delay.
8. The appeal is accordingly dismissed. No order as to costs.
Appeal dismissed.