Laches and Delay, which MU Prints as Latches

In one line

There is no limitation period for a writ petition, and that is exactly why delay defeats one.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the Limitation Act 1963 does not apply to a petition under Article 226 or Article 32, but the writ remedy is discretionary and a court will refuse relief where the petitioner has been guilty of unreasonable delay; what is unreasonable depends on the facts, the court takes the period prescribed for an analogous suit as a guide, and delay is fatal where third-party rights have intervened or where the delay is unexplained.

MU's spelling

The University prints the head as "Latches" on three papers. The word is laches, from the old French laschesse, meaning slackness, and it means unreasonable delay in asserting a right. The misspelling is MU's; the doctrine is the same.

Why there is no limitation period

Because Article 226 prescribes none and the Limitation Act 1963 applies to suits, appeals and applications to courts under the Code, not to constitutional remedies. Section 3 of that Act requires every suit, appeal and application made after the prescribed period to be dismissed although limitation has not been set up as a defence, and section 5 allows an appeal or application, other than one under Order XXI of the Code, to be admitted after the period on sufficient cause. Neither section governs a writ petition, and there is no third section that does.

So the control is discretionary, and the court supplies it.

The rule

Tilokchand Motichand v. H.B. Munshi, AIR 1970 SC 898.

Facts. Sales tax collected by the petitioners from their customers and paid to the State was ordered to be refunded to them on condition that they passed it on to the customers. They did not, and the officer forfeited the amount under section 21(4) of the Bombay Sales Tax Act 1953 in March 1958. Their writ petition to the High Court was dismissed and their properties were attached in December 1958. In 1967, after another party had succeeded in having section 21(4) declared invalid, they came to the Supreme Court under Article 32.

Held. The petition was dismissed for laches. Article 32 gives the right to move the Court and the State can place no hindrance in the way of an aggrieved person, but once the matter has reached the Court the extent or manner of interference is for the Court to decide. The Court has put itself under restraint, and it will not allow a stale claim to be agitated years later merely because somebody else has since succeeded on the same point.

Why it matters here. It is the leading authority, and it explains the paradox: the right to move is guaranteed, the manner of interference is not.