Click the Play button to listen to article

The Supreme Court has recently held that a litigant cannot be shown the door merely because an appeal was e-filed a day beyond the statutorily condonable period, where the delay was caused solely by a technical glitch in the tribunal's own e-filing portal.

A bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sheel Nagu held so while setting aside an order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), New Delhi, which had dismissed an appeal as time-barred on the ground that it fell one day beyond the maximum period condonable under Section 61(2) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC).

The dispute concerns a resolution plan which was approved by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Mumbai, on December 15, 20225. Aggrieved by this, the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner II filed an appeal before the NCLAT.

For context, Section 61(2) of the IBC provides that an appeal must be filed within 30 days, extendable by a further 15 days on sufficient cause being shown but not beyond that (45 days). Since the limitation runs from the date of pronouncement of the NCLT's order, the 45-day limit in this case expired on January 29, 2026.

The appellant contended that an attempt to e-file the appeal on January 28, 2026 was made, but could not do so because of technical defects in the NCLAT's e-filing portal. Another attempt was made on January 29, 2026 which was the last day of the condonable period. However, the Registry informed the appellant that a backend technical defect was under repair. The appeal was finally e-filed on January 30, 2026.

However, the NCLAT rejected the application for condonation of delay and dismissed the appeal as time-barred. For this, it relied on Sanjay Pandurang Kalate v Vistra ITCL (India) Limited & Ors (2023), V Nagarajan v SKS Ispat and Power Limited and Ors(2021), National Spot Exchange Ltd v Anil Kohli(2021), RP for Dunar Foods Ltd, and Tata Steel Ltd v Raj Kumar Banerjee & Ors. It, thus, held that it had no power to condone delay beyond the 30+15 day timeline prescribed under Section 61(2).

The Supreme Court found that the precedents relied upon were factually distinguishable and had no application to the present case. Citing Regional Manager v Pawan Kumar Dubey, the Court reiterated that “additional or different fact can make a world of difference between conclusions in two cases even when the same principles are applied in each case to similar facts.”

The Court noted the delay in this case was not attributable to the litigant's ignorance, hardship, laches or negligence, but arose entirely from a fault in the NCLAT's own e-filing system. This was borne out by the NCLAT Registry's own report filed pursuant to the NCLAT's order which confirmed that the appellant had made bona fide attempts to e-file the appeal from January 28, 2026 onward, but could not do so because of OTP delivery failures on the portal.

The bench framed the central question as, “should a litigant be shown the door at the very first instance due to e-filing of an appeal beyond the statutorily condonable period, particularly when such a filing has been delayed for bona fide reasons beyond the litigant's control and when the fault was entirely at the end of the Registry of the NCLAT? We think not!”

The Court held that while Section 61(2) of the IBC does not confer power on the NCLAT to condone delay beyond the 30+15 days, the NCLAT ought to have invoked the principle of actus curiae neminem gravabit (an act of the court shall prejudice no one). The Court explained as follows, “law is well-settled that limitation runs against a litigant only when the court/tribunal is open and functional, in the sense that it is capable of receiving the papers pertaining to the lis sought to be presented by a party aggrieved. When the system of the court/tribunal fails to receive the papers, which are sought to be presented bona fide and within the prescribed time, the litigant cannot be rendered remediless on the specious ground that the court/tribunal has no power to condone the delay.”

The Court also clarified that what the appellant was seeking was not condonation of delay but an exemption of the period during which the e-filing system remained non-functional from the computation of limitation, so that the appeal would be treated as having been presented within the 45 days itself.

The underlying principle of Order VII Rule 6 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (CPC) was also invoked noting that although the CPC does not strictly apply to IBC proceedings, its principles can be invoked in an appropriate case. It held that “acknowledging that it is a system failure at its end, which requires correction, and to direct that the appeal be registered as filed within the outer condonable period of limitation by treating the date of the first bona fide attempt to e-file as the date of presentation, is what the justice of the case required. Absent such direction, it would tantamount to making the litigant suffer for the actus curiae (act of the court).”

The Supreme Court, thus, held that the NCLAT had erred in dismissing the appeal and thereby occasioned a miscarriage of justice.

“Since the NCLAT was not precluded from invoking the “actus curiae neminem gravabit” principle in the absence of any remedy in Section 61, or in any of the other provisions of the IBC, we are of the considered opinion that the NCLAT committed an error by passing the impugned order, which has undoubtedly occasioned miscarriage of justice,” it was held.

Setting aside the NCLAT order, the appeal was accordingly allowed. The appeal before the NCLAT was, thus, restored. The Court also directed the NCLAT to reconsider whether sufficient cause was shown to condone the delay beyond 30 days under Section 61(2), and to dispose of the application at the earliest. It was also clarified that the appeal be registered and decided on merits, in accordance with law.

Case: Regional Provident Fund Commissioner II v Ms Mamta Binani & Ors

Citation : 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 946

Click here to read the judgment

Appearance:

For Appellant: Mr Ajit Sharma, AOR; Mr Kanchan Kumar Singh, Adv.; Mr Yuvrajsinh C Solanki, Adv.; Mr Anant Ram Mishra, Adv.; Mr Lareb Habib Ansari, Adv.; Mr Akshat Sharma, Adv.; Mr Amrit Keshri Nandan Pradhan, Adv.; Ms Shweta Jain, Adv.

For Respondent: M/s Lawfic, AOR; Mr Sandeep Bajaj, Adv.; Ms Aakanksha Nehra, Adv.; Ms Ananya Pratap Singh, Adv.; Mr Shubham Jaiswal, Adv.


Tags: