Limitation Act condonation powers do not extend to the tax tribunal absent express statutory authority.

Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 applies only to proceedings before a court, so it does not extend to the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal acting as a quasi-judicial body. In the absence of an express statutory provision, the Tribunal cannot condone delay in filing a time-limited reference application under the Income-tax Act, 1922. The statutory pattern in the tax enactments, which expressly authorised condonation in specific provisions, reinforced that no general power of condonation could be implied for such reference applications.

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Issues: Whether the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal had power to condone the one-day delay in filing the reference application under section 66(1) of the Income-tax Act, 1922 by invoking section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 read with section 29(2) of that Act.

Analysis: The limitation for a reference application under the 1922 Act was governed by the special statutory scheme of section 66(3). Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 applies only to a proceeding before "the court" and not to the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal, which is a quasi-judicial tribunal and not a court for that purpose. The structure of the Income-tax Act itself showed that whenever the legislature intended condonation of delay, it did so expressly, as in sections 30(2), 33(2A), 33A(2) and 66(7A) of the 1922 Act, and later in section 256(2), section 249(3) and section 253(5) of the 1961 Act. That legislative pattern confirmed that no general power of condonation existed in the Tribunal under section 5 of the Limitation Act.

Conclusion: The Tribunal had no power to condone the delay, and the reference application was rightly rejected as time-barred.

Ratio Decidendi: Section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 applies only to a court, and in the absence of an express statutory provision the Income-tax Appellate Tribunal cannot condone delay in filing a time-limited reference application under the Income-tax Act, 1922.

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