Limitation and court-fee changes: recalibrate your deadlines

Court fees and limitation are the two ways a good claim dies before anyone reads it. Both have moved recently. This alert states the position as of late March 2026.

What changed

Court fees are a provincial subject, and the provinces have been revising the schedules to the Court Fees Act 1870 through their annual finance acts. Ad valorem rates and the maximum fee payable on a plaint have been raised in more than one province in recent years [specific finance acts, rates and caps for Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan — TO BE VERIFIED BY REVIEWING LAWYER]. Payment mechanics have also changed: Punjab and Sindh now collect court fees largely through e-stamping rather than adhesive stamps [current coverage — TO BE VERIFIED BY REVIEWING LAWYER].

Limitation has moved less, but the environment around it has. Specialised regimes — commercial courts legislation in Punjab, tribunal statutes, and the appellate timelines in regulatory laws — carry their own short periods that displace the familiar schedules of the Limitation Act 1908 [current status of the Punjab commercial courts regime — TO BE VERIFIED BY REVIEWING LAWYER].

What it means

Three old rules carry the new consequences.

First, limitation is unforgiving by design. Section 3 of the Limitation Act requires the court to dismiss a time-barred suit even if the defendant never pleads limitation. Section 5, which allows delay to be condoned for sufficient cause, applies to appeals and applications — not to suits. For a suit, there is no mercy jurisdiction: the period in the schedule is the period.

Second, a court-fee deficit is curable, but only as a matter of discretion. A plaint presented with insufficient fee is not a nullity. Section 149 of the Code of Civil Procedure permits the court to allow the deficiency to be made good, and payment then relates back to the date of presentation. But the power is discretionary, and Order VII, rule 11 requires rejection of a plaint that is undervalued or insufficiently stamped where the plaintiff fails to correct it within the time the court allows. A litigant who deliberately underpays and hopes for indulgence is gambling with the claim itself.

Third, higher fees raise the stakes of valuation. As ad valorem rates rise, the incentive to undervalue suits — and the incentive for defendants to attack valuation — rises with them. A valuation dispute adds months, and if it is resolved against the plaintiff near the edge of limitation, the combination of the two regimes can be fatal.

One piece of relief is often forgotten. Section 12 of the Limitation Act excludes, in computing the period for an appeal or revision, the time properly spent obtaining the certified copy of the judgment and decree. That exclusion is only as good as the record of when the copy was applied for and when it was delivered.

What this means for you

Recalculate the court fee for every claim in your pipeline against the current provincial schedule, not the figure from the last filing — and budget for it, because on a large money claim the fee is now a real cost of entry [current caps — TO BE VERIFIED BY REVIEWING LAWYER]. Diarise limitation from the underlying event, never from the date the fee or the paperwork will be ready, and treat suits as uncondonable. Do not file with a known deficit on the assumption that section 149 will rescue you; if a deficit is unavoidable, disclose it and seek time in the plaint itself. For appeals, apply for the certified copy the day the judgment is announced and keep the copying-agency receipts, since the section 12 exclusion is proved by them. And where a specialised statute governs your dispute, check its own limitation clause first — the general schedules are the last place to look, not the first.