Exclusion of time for limitation

(1) In computing the period of limitation or limit of time prescribed for a suit for the recovery of a debt or an application for the execution of a decree passed in such suit, the time during which the institution of the suit or the making of the application was barred by section 3 of the Ordinance or section 3 of this Act, or during which the plaintiff or his predecessor-in-title, believing in good faith that section 3 of the Ordinance or section 3 of this Act applied to such suit or such application, refrained from instituting the suit or making the application, shall be excluded. Explanation.- 'good faith' shall have the meaning assigned to it in section 3 (22) of the General Clauses Act, 1897 (Central Act X of 1897). (2) Where in a suit or an application in which the question of the exclusion of time under sub-section (1) arises, the defendant or the respondent, or one of the defendants or respondents, with respect to whom the question is raised, would have been an agriculturist but for the fact that in the year ending 1951-52, 1952-53, or 1953-54 he had been assessed to income-tax (Central Act XI of 1922), it shall be conclusively presumed that, in refraining from instituting the suit or making the application, the creditor believed in good faith that such defendant or respondent was an agriculturist.