Supreme Court of India: The Bench of M.R. Shah and Aniruddha Bose, JJ., observed that,
“Appellate Tribunal has jurisdiction or power to condone the delay not exceeding 15 days from the completion of 30 days, the statutory period of limitation.”
Aggrieved and dissatisfied with impugned order passed by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal by which NCLAT refused to condone delay of 44 days in preferring the appeal against the order passed by the National Company Law Tribunal rejecting the claim of the appellant. Appellant has preferred the present appeal.
Factual Background
State Bank of India (SBI) had initiated the insolvency proceedings before the NCLT under Section 7 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 against Dunar Foods Limited (Corporate Debtor) on the ground that Corporate Debtor had taken credit limits by hypothecating the commodities kept in the warehouses of the appellant.
It was stated that there was a delay of 44 days in preferring the appeal before NCLAT as the said appeal was required to be filed within a maximum period of 45 days (30 days + 15 days). However, there was a further delay of 44 days beyond a total period of 45 days.
Therefore, considering Section 61(2) of IBC which provides for powers to the Appellate Tribunal to condone delay of only 15 days which it can condone over the period of 30 days, if there is a sufficient cause, by impugned order, the Appellate Tribunal dismissed the appeal on the ground that the tribunal had no jurisdiction to condone the delay beyond 15 days and thereby the appeal was barred by limitation.
Analysis, Law and Decision
Bench noted that the appellant had applied for the certified copy of the order passed by the adjudicating authority after a delay of 34 days. Hence the said copy of the order was applied beyond the prescribed period of limitation i.e. beyond 30 days.
As the Appellate Tribunal can condone the delay up to a period of 15 days only, the Appellate Tribunal refused to condone the delay which was beyond 15 days from completion of 30 days, i.e., in the present case delay of 44 days and consequently dismissed the appeal.
Hence, the appellate tribunal did not commit any error.
Further, the Court stated that in a case there may arise a situation where the applicant may not be in a position to file the appeal within a statutory period of limitation and even within the extended maximum period of appeal which could be condoned owing to genuineness, viz., illness, accident, etc. However, Parliament has not carved any exception of such a situation.
“…courts have no jurisdiction and/or authority to carve out any exception. If the courts carve out an exception, it would amount to legislate which would in turn might be inserting the provision to the statute, which is not permissible.”
In the decision of Popat Bahiru Govardhane v. Special Land Acquisition Officer, (2013) 10 SCC 765, this Court has observed and held that it is a settled legal position that the law of limitation may harshly affect a particular party but it has to be applied with all its rigour when the Statute so prescribes.
Further, in the decision of this Court in Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Limited v. Gujarat Energy Transmission Corporation Limited, (2017) 5 SCC 42, the question was with respect to delay beyond 120 days in preferring the appeal under Section 125 of the Electricity Act and the question arose whether the delay beyond 120 days in preferring the appeal is condonable or not. After considering various earlier decisions of this Court on the point and considering the language used in Section 125 [2] of the Electricity Act which provided that delay beyond 120 days is not condonable, this Court has observed and held that it is not condonable and it cannot be condoned, even taking recourse to Article 142 of the Constitution.
Hence, Supreme Court held that delay beyond 15 days in preferring the appeal is uncondonable, the same cannot be condoned even in exercise of powers under Article 142 of the Constitution.
Conclusion
“…considering the fact that even the certified copy of the order passed by the adjudicating authority was applied beyond the period of 30 days and as observed hereinabove there was a delay of 44 days in preferring the appeal which was beyond the period of 15 days which maximum could have been condoned and in view of specific statutory provision contained in Section 61(2) of the IB Code, it cannot be said that the NCLAT has committed any error in dismissing the appeal on the ground of limitation by observing that it has no jurisdiction and/or power to condone the delay exceeding 15 days.”
In view of the above discussion, the appeal failed and was dismissed. [National Spot Exchange Ltd. v. Anil Kohli, 2021 SCC OnLine SC 716, decided on 14-09-2021]
