FEMA limitation period: High Court treats the statutory appeal window as an absolute outer limit and refuses condonation beyond it.

Section 35 of FEMA permits an appeal to the High Court within 60 days of communication of the Appellate Tribunal's order, with a further condonable period not exceeding 60 days on sufficient cause. The Delhi HC treated this as a fixed outer limit of 120 days and held that delay beyond that limit cannot be condoned. An explanation based on internal governmental processing and file movement was found inadequate. The condonation application was dismissed, and the appeal was held time-barred.

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Issues: Whether the delay of 119 days in filing the appeal could be condoned under Section 35 of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, and whether an appeal filed beyond the outer limit prescribed by that provision was maintainable.

Analysis: The appeal lay to the High Court under Section 35 of FEMA, which permits filing within sixty days from communication of the Appellate Tribunal's order and allows a further period not exceeding sixty days on sufficient cause being shown. The Court held that the statutory scheme creates an absolute outer limit of 120 days for such an appeal. The explanation furnished for the delay, based on internal governmental processing and file movement, was found wholly inadequate and unsatisfactory. Since the appeal had been filed beyond the maximum permissible period, the delay could not be condoned.

Conclusion: The delay was not condonable and the condonation application was dismissed; consequently, the appeal was dismissed as time-barred.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a statute prescribes a fixed period for filing an appeal and a limited further period for condonation, the court cannot extend the limitation beyond the outer statutory limit, and an appeal filed after that limit is barred.

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