Recently, the Supreme Court sent a clear message that statutory deadlines under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (hereinafter referred to as ‘IBC’) are not mere procedural formalities but hard limits that cannot be stretched through delayed re-filing of defective appeals. The Court held that once the period prescribed under Section 62 of the IBC and the time available for curing defects expire, the right to appeal is lost altogether. The Bench emphasised that the objective of speedy insolvency resolution would be defeated if litigants were permitted to keep defective appeals pending and rectify them at their convenience.
The case arose from an appeal filed under Section 62 of the IBC against an order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). Although the appellant presented the appeal before the Apex Court within the additional condonable period available under Section 62(2) of the IBC, the Registry found certain defects and marked the appeal as defective. While the Supreme Court Rules, 2013 permit removal of such defects within 28 days of notification, the appellant failed to cure them within the prescribed period and re-filed the appeal after a further delay of 82 days, accompanied by applications seeking condonation of delay. This gave rise to the central question before the Court: whether a defective appeal filed under Section 62 of the IBC can be revived by condoning delay in re-filing after the expiry of the statutory timelines prescribed under the IBC and the Supreme Court Rules.
The Appellant contended that the delay in re-filing should be viewed liberally, particularly because the appeal was being pursued by a liquidator acting for the benefit of stakeholders and the corporate debtor. The counsel argued that the Supreme Court Rules did not impose an absolute prohibition on condoning re-filing delays and that a satisfactory explanation ought to permit the Court to exercise discretion. Reliance was also placed on an earlier decision involving the same parties where the delay in re-filing an appeal before the NCLAT had been condoned in the interest of justice. The Respondent, however, maintained that the IBC envisages a strict and time-bound appellate framework and that permitting delayed re-filing would undermine the legislative objective of expeditious insolvency resolution.
The Division Bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma observed that timelines under the IBC are not merely procedural but form the backbone of the insolvency framework. The Court noted that a defective appeal cannot be treated as a properly instituted appeal merely because it was lodged within limitation.
The Court observed, “Can or should a litigant be permitted to circumvent the rigours of limitation by filing a defective appeal as a device to save limitation and, thereafter, to opt to cure the notified defects at leisure? Can or should this Court countenance such a practice? The answers to both questions have to be a resounding ‘NO’.” The Bench held that accepting such a course would defeat the discipline of timelines consciously built into the IBC.
The Court further emphasised that the Supreme Court Rules cannot be used to dilute the statutory mandate of the IBC. The Bench stated, “The SCR is the subordinate legislation in the field and whenever the IBC and the SCR clash, the latter cannot override the express provisions of the former. The IBC must prevail being the statutory edict.”
The Court clarified that once the maximum sixty-day period available under Section 62 of the IBC and the twenty-eight-day period for curing defects under the Supreme Court Rules expire, no surviving right of appeal remains. The Bench held, “Once the window of 60 days prescribed by the IBC, followed by the window of 28 days in re-filing the appeal upon curing of defects permitted by the SCR is shut, the right to appeal stands extinguished.”
Consequently, the appeal was dismissed as time-barred.
Case Title: CA Ramchandra Dallaram Choudhary Vs. Adani Infrastructure and Developers Private Limited
Case No.: D.No.5988/2026
Coram: Hon’ble Justice Dipankar Datta, Hon’ble Justice Satish Chandra Sharma
Advocate for the Petitioner: Sr. Adv. Sunil Fernandes, Sr. Adv. Abhijeet Sinha, AOR Shubham Bhalla, Adv. Atul Sharma, Adv. Pankaj Jain, Adv. Aditi Sharma, Adv. Vikram Choudhary
Advocate for the Respondent: Sr. Adv. Balbir Singh, AOR Hetu Arora Sethi, Adv. Anirudh Bhat, Adv. Siddarth Agarwal, Adv. Shamik Bhatt, Adv. Sanidhya Kumar, Adv. Vedant Kohli
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