Limitation under Section 95 IBC must exclude the Supreme Court's directed period when computing time for filing.

For an application under Section 95 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, Article 137 of the Limitation Act, 1963 supplies the relevant three-year limitation period, and any period directed to be excluded by the Supreme Court in its suo motu limitation orders must be deducted when computing time. Applying that exclusion, the application was found to have been filed within time because the invocation date fell within the excluded period. The limitation-based rejection was therefore set aside, and the matter was restored for fresh consideration.

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Issues: Whether the application under Section 95 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 was barred by limitation, and whether the exclusion of the period from 15.03.2020 to 28.02.2022 applied so as to render the application within time.

Analysis: The application had been rejected solely on limitation. The appellate tribunal accepted that proceedings under Section 95 are governed by the limitation framework applicable to such applications, with Article 137 of the Limitation Act, 1963 providing the relevant three-year period. It further accepted that the period directed to be excluded by the Supreme Court in the suo motu limitation orders had to be excluded while computing limitation. On that basis, the date of invocation fell within the excluded period and the application, when computed after exclusion, was within time. The rejection on limitation was therefore unsustainable.

Conclusion: The finding that the Section 95 application was time-barred was set aside, and the matter was restored for fresh consideration.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the Supreme Court has directed exclusion of a specified period for limitation purposes, that period must be excluded while computing limitation for an application under Section 95 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, and a dismissal based on an incorrect limitation computation cannot stand.

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