TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (5) TMI 517
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....e been filed by the Appellants under Section 61 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, ('IBC' in short) challenging a common impugned order dated 07.10.2025 passed by the Adjudicating Authority (National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai Bench-II) in Company Appeal No.28 of 2025 (filed under Section 42 of IBC) in CP(IB)/559(MB)2018. Both the Appeals are accompanied by applications praying for condonation of delay in filing of the appeal. We propose to deal with both the delay condonation applications separately. 2. Company Appeal No. 2004 of 2025 has been e-filed by the Appellant-Liquidator before this Tribunal on 29.11.2025. The Appeal has been accompanied with I.A No. 7837 of 2024 which is an application praying for condonation of delay in the filing of the appeal. The prayers contained in I.A No. 7837 of 2024 read as follows: "15. In view of the aforesaid facts and circumstances, it is therefore prayed that this Hon'ble Appellate Tribunal be pleased to: a. Allow the present Application and condone the delay of 23 days in filing the present Appeal; b. Any other reliefs as deemed fit in the facts of case." 3. At the very outset we take notice that....
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....lia, for any appeal, the day from which such period is to be reckoned shall be excluded. Hence, considering that the date on which the Impugned Order was uploaded on NCLT website is 30.10.2025, the aforesaid day will be excluded from computation of 30 days' period for preferring the appeal in terms of Section 61 of IBC. 7. Further, 30 days' time period computed from 31.10.2025 shall expire on 29.11.2025. 8. The Appellant / Applicant submits that Section 12(2) of the Limitation Act, 1963 provides for exclusion of time period incurred in obtaining the certified copy of the order. Upon the Impugned Order being uploaded on 30.10.2025, the certified copy was applied for on the next date, i.e., 31.10.2025 and provided on 03.11.2025, i.e., within the limitation period. Hence, the time period between 31.10.2025 to 03.11.2025, i.e., 4 days is to be excluded in view of Section 12(2) of the Limitation Act, 1963. Therefore, the limitation period ends on 03.12.2025. Thus, the present appeal is within the prescribed limitation period. The Appellant / Applicant craves leave to satisfy the Hon'ble Appellate Tribunal on limitation and maintainability of the present Appeal at the t....
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....15 days after expiry of the limitation or fell beyond the statutory outer limit of 45 days. 10. From the facts as noticed above, there is clearly no dispute that the date of pronouncement of the impugned order is 07.10.2025 which was uploaded on the website of the NCLT on 30.10.2025. There is also no dispute that the Appellant applied for certified copy of the impugned order on 31.10.2025 and the certified copy was made available on 03.11.2025. It is also an admitted fact that the appeal has been filed on 29.11.2025. It is also necessary to notice that the Appellant was arrayed as a party in the matter and hence was aware of the proceedings before the NCLT which fact has not been denied by the Appellant. Having set out the undisputed chronology of dates, we now proceed to consider the rival contentions. 11. It is the case of the Appellant that on 07.10.2025, Company Appeal No.28 of 2025 was not listed in the cause list under the caption "For Pronouncement" before the Adjudicating Authority. Instead, it was listed at Item No. 120 under the caption of "Ordinary - For further consideration" as has been placed on record by the Appellant in their Additional affidavit. It was furth....
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....of the complete impugned order on the official website of the NCLT on 30.10.2025. In such circumstances, when there was no unequivocal pronouncement of the order before the upload of the order, limitation could not have started clocking from 07.10.2025. 14. Rebutting the contentions articulated by the Appellant, the Ld. Counsel for the Respondent emphatically asserted that the impugned order was pronounced by the Adjudicating Authority in an open court on 07.10.2025 and therefore limitation got triggered from that date. It was submitted that the prescribed period of 30 days expired on 06.11.2025 and the maximum outer limit of 45 days, inclusive of the condonable window of 15 days expired on 21.11.2025. The appeal was admittedly filed on 29.11.2025 and hence was in clear breach of the prescribed outer limit of 45 days and since this Appellate Tribunal has no jurisdiction, statutory or otherwise, to condone such delay, this delay condonation application deserves to be rejected. The appeal is therefore liable to be dismissed on this ground alone. 15. It was also pressed that not only was the impugned order pronounced in open court on 07.10.2025, but the Appellant was present in ....
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....to lodge an application for a certified copy on 17-5-2023. Time for filing an appeal would commence only when the order appealed from was uploaded since prior to that date no order was pronounced. 20. In Cethar Ltd. (Resolution Professional), there was an unequivocal pronouncement of the order before the upload of the order and thus, the decision is not applicable to the facts of the case. In the facts of the present case, the date of upload of the order is the same as the date of pronouncement. To avoid situations such as these, in cases where the matter has been heard on a particular day but the order is pronounced on a later date, NCLT must refrain from affixing the date of hearing on the order. Such an approach would be a violation of the NCLT Rules, which create a distinction between hearing and pronouncement and do not allow NCLT to dispense with the requirement of pronouncement." (Emphasis supplied) 17. From a plain reading of the above judgement, it becomes clear that the date on which the limitation begins to run is intrinsically linked to the date of pronouncement. At the same time, it is equally clear that when order is pronounced, the period of limitation....
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....r Pronouncement" before the Ld. Adjudicating Authority, Mumbai Bench-II, however, undisputedly, the matter adjudicated in the Impugned Order was listed at Item No. 120 under the caption "ordinary for further consideration" which is evident from the cause-list of even date. Pertinently, after hearing the parties to some extent, the Ld. Adjudicating Authority did not reserve the matter for orders in terms of NCLT Rules, 2016 for pronouncement, however, it indicated to the parties that the company appeal filed u/s. 42 of the IBC, 2016 by Respondent No.1 herein, deserves to be allowed. 7. The knowledge of the aforesaid substantive portions of the Impugned Order was made available to the parties concerned only upon the uploading of the complete Impugned Order on the official website of the Ld. NCLT i.e., on 30.10.2025 and not on 07.10.2025, as on 07.10.2025, the Ld. Adjudicating Authority only indicated that the Section 42 appeal deserves to be allowed....." (Emphasis supplied) 21. Even in their appeal petition before this Tribunal, the Appellant has alluded at page 32 of the Appeal Paper Book that the Company Appeal No.28 of 2025 filed before the Adjudicating Authority w....
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....t aware of the effective order cannot be reason to extend period of limitation from the date of uploading of the order. The law on commencement of limitation under Section 61(2) is well settled by judgement of the Hon'ble Apex Court in V. Nagarajan v. SKS Ispat & Power Ltd. (2022) 2 SCC 244 wherein it has been held that limitation begins from the date of pronouncement of the order and not from the date of receipt of a certified copy or the date of uploading. Once an order is pronounced in open court, which fact has not been controverted in the present case by both the parties, the clock of limitation is set into motion. The judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court in A. Rajendra judgement supra which has been relied upon by the Appellant also does not come to their support as it has been held in no uncertain terms that once the order is pronounced in open court, limitation commences from that very date and cannot be shifted to the date of uploading of the said order. Hence, we are not persuaded by the contention of the Appellant that limitation be counted from the date of uploading of the order when the order had been pronounced in open court where they were undeniably present. 24. It ....
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....dance with the scheme of the IBC. IBC is a statute which provide for timely resolution/ liquidation of the Corporate Debtor. Timeline for various acts are prescribed. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in "V. Nagarajan" (supra) has held that Section 61 has to be interpreted keeping in view the purpose and object of the IBC and Section 61 has to be put to interpretation in the above manner. We, thus, are of the view that the submission of the Appellant that the period of limitation shall commence for filing the Appeal when aggrieved party/Appellant is aware of the contents of the order cannot be accepted. 32. In the present case, when orders were pronounced by the Adjudicating Authority, they cannot be allowed to contend that they are not aware of the order of the Adjudicating Authority. Further, Section 12 of the Limitation Act provides for exclusion of the time taken in obtaining certified copy of an order. After an order is pronounced which pronouncement is well known to the Appellant in the present case, it was open for them to apply for the certified copy of order, even if they are not aware of the contents of the order as per their submissions on that date. Certified copy of t....
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....annot exceed that limit. In other words, the NCLAT being a creature of statute, operates strictly within the powers conferred upon it. Unlike a civil suit, it lacks inherent jurisdiction to extend time on equitable grounds. 11.1. Once the prescribed and condonable periods (i.e., 30 + 15 days) expire, the NCLAT has no jurisdiction to entertain appeals, regardless of the reason for the delay. In Mobilox Innovations Private Limited v. Kirusa Software Private Limited, while interpreting Section 9 IBC, this Court underscores the IBC's strict procedural discipline i.e., only applications strictly conforming to statutory requirements can be entertained. This principle is also applicable to limitation issues under section 61(2), as it supports the idea that tribunals must operate within the bounds of the Code, without adding equitable or discretionary powers not conferred by statute. This Court in Kalpraj Dharamshi v. Kotak Investment Advisors Limited & Another has categorically held that the NCLAT cannot condone any delay beyond 15 days even on equitable grounds; and that the appellate mechanism under IBC is strictly time-bound by design to preserve the speed and certainty of the....
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....t refuting the contentions made by the Appellant emphatically asserted that the computation of limitation for filing of an appeal has to commence from date of pronouncement of the impugned order which in the present case was 07.10.2025. The prescribed period of 30 days accordingly expired on 06.11.2025. The maximum outer limit of 45 days inclusive of the condonable window expired on 21.11.2025. On the other hand, the present appeal has been filed on 11.12.2025 which is at least 65 days from the date of pronouncement of the impugned order and 20 days beyond even the outer statutory limit. The appeal has been filed well beyond 45 days outer limit and therefore beyond the jurisdiction of the Tribunal to condone. It was also added that the Appellant had not even filed any application seeking exemption from filing certified copy of impugned order along with delay condonation application but submitted it subsequently on 09.01.2026 which was 94 days from the date of the impugned order. 31. Coming to one of the grounds of delay put forth by the Appellant that as it was not made a party in Company Appeal 28 of 2025, it was not aware of the ongoing proceedings, we find that this plea was ....
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....n adverted to above, the party which had filed the appeal was not a party before the NCLT but it was categorically held that once the order was pronounced in the open court, limitation started running from that day. Hence in the present case too, the Appellant cannot raise the ground that since they were not a party in the proceedings, the limitation would stand arrested until receipt of knowledge of the order. 33. We have already dealt with the issue in Company Appeal No 2004 of 2025 that the running of limitation is not contingent upon the date on which the order is uploaded on the portal and also entirely independent of when the Appellant acquires knowledge of the impugned order as has been held in the V. Nagarajan judgement supra and to remove all ambiguities, we reproduce the relevant paragraphs therefrom: "24. IBC is a complete code in itself and overrides any inconsistencies that may arise in the application of other laws. Section 61 IBC, begins with a non obstante provision- "notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained under the Companies Act, 2013" when prescribing the right of an aggrieved party to file an appeal before NCLAT along within the stipulated....
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....file for a certified copy after five months of the pronouncement of the order. 33. The answer to the two issues set out in Section C of the judgment-(i) when will the clock for calculating the limitation period run for proceedings under IBC; and (ii) is the annexation of a certified copy mandatory for an appeal to NCLAT against an order passed under IBC - must be based on a harmonious interpretation of the applicable legal regime, given that IBC is a Code in itself and has overriding effect. Sections 61(1) and (2) IBC consciously omit the requirement of limitation being computed from when the "order is made available to the aggrieved party", in contradistinction to Section 421(3) of the Companies Act. Owing to the special nature of IBC, the aggrieved party is expected to exercise due diligence and apply for a certified copy upon pronouncement of the order it seeks to assail, in consonance with the requirements of Rule 22(2) of the NCLAT Rules. Section 12(2) of the Limitation Act allows for an exclusion of the time requisite for obtaining a copy of the decree or order appealed against. It is not open to a person aggrieved by an order under IBC to await the receipt of a free....