Section 103(2) of the Companies Act of 2013 opens with these words: “If the quorum is not present within half-an-hour from the time appointed for holding a meeting of the company.” In that case the meeting is adjourned to the same day in the next week, at the same time and place, unless the board decides otherwise.
A shareholders’ meeting called for 11 a.m. can therefore still begin at 11:29, once a quorum is present.
A Kathakali performance in Kerala is announced by drums. In the Kelikottu, drums and cymbals are played at about 6 p.m. to announce the performance of the evening. The play itself starts later, often between 9 and 10 p.m.
Traditionally, a performance starts at dusk and continues through dawn, with breaks for the performers and the audience. Some plays ran over several nights.
On December 9, 2025, students in Chandla, in the Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh, were called to a sports ground at about 9 or 10 a.m. for a Sansad Khel Mahotsav, a sports festival. The program formally began near 3 p.m., when the chief guest arrived. He was V.D. Sharma, a BJP member of Parliament.
A girl player told him: Namaste to theek hai, lekin hum subah se intezaar kar rahe hain, kya hamare paas itna faltu time hai? Greetings are fine, but we have been waiting since morning. Do we have so much spare time?
Sharma smiled. He said the organizers had given him a 2 p.m. slot.
In January 2015 a Business Standard column described a gathering of a traders’ society in Kolkata. The audience was waiting for the Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley. Siddharth Nath Singh, a national secretary of the BJP, was asked to keep the audience occupied, and he spoke until Jaitley arrived.
The Star Nite Awards 2011 in Delhi honored resellers of information technology products. The event was set for 6:30 p.m. At 7 it was still nowhere near starting, because the invited sponsors and businessmen had not come. The chief guest, Shankar Aggarwal, an additional secretary in the Department of Information Technology, got up to leave. The organizers tried to calm him.
“The ceremonial lamp was lit 10 minutes later with many industry big shots still missing,” Open magazine reported.
The official calendar of Andhra Pradesh set the Eid-ul-Fitr holiday of 2026 for Friday, March 20. On March 19, the government moved it to Saturday, March 21. The Shawwal crescent moon “was not sighted anywhere in the country,” the Deccan Chronicle reported.
Abujh muhurat is a day so auspicious that no auspicious moment needs to be calculated. Akshaya Tritiya is one. In April 2026 Navbharat Live wrote of it: Is din kisi shubh evam mangalik karyon ko karne ke liye muhurat dekhne ki zaroorat nahi hoti hai. On this day there is no need to look for a muhurat to do any auspicious work.
In Hindustani classical music, each raga has its samay, its time. Bhairav “is an early morning (pratham prahar) raag.” It is traditionally performed in the morning, and it also serves as the opening piece of a concert. Malkauns belongs to late night, from midnight to 3 a.m. The singer Pandit Jasraj described it as a raga “sung during small hours of the morning, just after midnight.”
Under Section 55 of the Indian Contract Act of 1872, a missed date makes a contract voidable only if the parties intended time to be essential. Otherwise the other side can only claim compensation.
In Chand Rani v. Kamal Rani, decided in December 1992, the Supreme Court applied this to the sale of immovable property. In such sales “there is no presumption as to time being the essence of the contract.” Elsewhere the judgment puts it more strongly: “there is presumption against time being the essence of the contract.”
Section 5 of the Limitation Act of 1963 allows a court to admit an appeal after its deadline if the applicant shows that “he had sufficient cause” for the delay.
In Collector, Land Acquisition, Anantnag v. Mst. Katiji, decided on February 19, 1987, the Supreme Court explained how to read the rule. “It is common knowledge that this Court has been making a justifiably liberal approach in matters instituted in this Court,” it said. The “cause of substantial justice deserves to be preferred” over technical considerations.