The Indian Limitation Act deals with the Law of Prescription as well as the Law Limitation. A Law of Prescription prescribes the period at the expiry of which not only the judicial remedy is barred but a substantive right is acquired or extinguished.
A Law of Limitation limits the time after which a suit or other proceeding cannot be maintained in a Court of Justice. It simply bars the judicial remedy but it neither affects the extra judicial remedies nor the substantive right itself.
Prescription is the acquisition of Title by possession of property for the prescribed period provided that possession was neither forcible nor clandestine (hidden), nor permissive. Such possession acquires its title chiefly on account of the fact that those who had interest in the property have allowed their rights to get barred by not caring to pursue their remedies within the time allowed by law to enforce those remedies.
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ADVERTISEMENTS:
Limitation as affecting the remedy comes under the head of adjective law. The Law of Prescription on the other hand as affecting the substance of the right itself comes under the department of substantive law.
The Indian Limitation Act on the one hand limits the time at the expiration of which civil rights cannot be enforced on the other hand it prescribes the length of use by which a right to property may be acquired.
Limitation is negative in its operation depriving a person of a power which he possessed before. Prescription, on the other hand, is affirmative conferring on a person right to that which he hitherto enjoyed in fact but not in right (e.g.,) a trespasser is an owner in fact and not in Law).
