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Judgment
Madhavan Nair J.
This is an appeal by the plaintiff-judgment-debtor against the order allowing execution against him for costs allowed to the defendant. The contention is one of limitation. The decree in the case is dated 15-11-1953; and the execution petition by the defendant-decree-holder is dated 5-8-1957. In order to save limitation the defendant relied on an appeal from the decree filed by the plaintiff which had been registered but been subsequently dismissed on 11-7-1955 for non-payment of deficit court-fee. Both the courts below concurred in holding that, as there was an appeal from the decree and the order thereon was within three years prior to the date of the execution application, the application is saved from bar by Article 182(2) of the Limitation Act.
Counsel for the appellant contends that u/s 32 of the Travancore-Cochin Court-Fees Act, II of 1125, no document which does not bear the prescribed court-fee could be of any validity and therefore the appeal which was insufficiently stamped could not be recognized to save the limitation. The Privy Council had occasion to consider the identical question in AIR 1932 165 (Privy Council) where their Lordships held:
...their Lordships have no doubt that any application by a party to an appellate Court, asking it to set aside or revise a decision of a subordinate court, is an appeal within the ordinary acceptation of the term, and that it is no less an appeal because it is irregular or incompetent.
Following the above dictum the Travancore-Cochin High Court held in State v. P. John Mathew (1955 K. L. T. 471 F. B.) and in Koruthu Kochukoshi v. Narayanan Kunju Pillai (1952 K. L. T. 423) that a memorandum of appeal insufficiently stamped but been registered in the Register of Appeals of the appellate court, as has been done in this case, would be an appeal within the meaning of Article 182(2) of the Limitation Act to give a fresh start for computation of period for limitation. Nothing has been shown by counsel to persuade me to differ from that dictum which is in consonance with the observations of the Privy Council referred to above. The second appeal fails, and is hereby dismissed with costs.