Supreme Court restores appeal delayed a day by NCLAT e-filing glitch
A bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Sheel Nagu held that a litigant cannot suffer where the NCLAT’s own e-filing system caused the one-day delay.
The Supreme Court has set aside an order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal that dismissed an insolvency appeal as time-barred, where the appeal was e-filed one day beyond the outer condonable limit because of a technical failure in the tribunal’s own e-filing portal. Justice Dipankar Datta, writing for a bench that also comprised Justice Sheel Nagu, held that the NCLAT ought to have applied the principle actus curiae neminem gravabit and treated the first bona fide attempt to e-file as the date of presentation. The Court agreed that the NCLAT had no power to condone delay beyond the 45-day limit under Section 61(2) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, but found that exempting the period during which the system was non-functional was what the justice of the case required.
How the dispute reached the Court
A resolution plan dated 22 April 2024, submitted by Ashdan Properties Private Limited for Rolta India Limited, was approved by the National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai, on 15 December 2025.
Aggrieved by that approval, the appellant — the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner-II — e-filed its appeal before the NCLAT on 30 January 2026, exactly one day after the permissible condonable period under Section 61(2) of the IBC.
The statutory period of 30 days ran from the date of pronouncement and ended on 14 January 2026. The additional 15-day grace period under the proviso expired on 29 January 2026.
The appellant explained that its counsel had attempted to e-file on 28 January 2026, but technical defects in the NCLAT’s e-filing portal prevented it. On 29 January 2026, the Registry informed the appellant of a backend technical defect that was taking time to repair. The appeal was finally e-filed on 30 January 2026.
Why the NCLAT rejected the appeal
By order dated 21 May 2026, the NCLAT rejected the condonation application and dismissed the appeal as time-barred. It relied on Sanjay Pandurang Kalate v. Vistra ITCL (India) Limited and V Nagarajan v. SKS Ispat and Power Limited to hold that limitation runs from pronouncement.
The tribunal held that it had no power to condone delay beyond the 30 plus 15 day timeline in Section 61(2), relying on National Spot Exchange Ltd. v. Anil Kohli and Tata Steel Ltd. v. Raj Kumar Banerjee.
What the Court held on the fault of the Registry
The Court did not disturb the NCLAT’s reading of limitation. It said it had no reason to disagree with the law in National Spot Exchange Ltd. and Tata Steel Ltd. But it found the facts of this appeal “rather glaring” and warranting different treatment.
The delay, the Court noted, arose not from ignorance, hardship, laches or negligence, but from a backend failure in the NCLAT’s system. This was borne out by the NCLAT Registry’s own report dated 6 May 2026, submitted pursuant to the tribunal’s order of 29 April 2026, which showed the appellant had tried to e-file from 28 January 2026 but was stopped by OTP delivery failures.
Citing Regional Manager v. Pawan Kumar Dubey, the Court held that the precedents relied on by the NCLAT did not apply on these facts. It framed the central question as whether a litigant should be shown the door for filing beyond the condonable period when the fault lay entirely with the Registry. “We think not!” the Court said.
Exemption rather than condonation
The Court drew a distinction between condoning delay, which the NCLAT lacked power to do, and exempting from limitation the period during which the e-filing system was non-functional. Limitation, it said, runs against a litigant only when the tribunal is open and capable of receiving papers.
Where the system fails to receive papers presented bona fide within time, the litigant cannot be left remediless. What was implicit in the appellant’s prayer, the Court held, was that the appeal be treated in law as presented within the 45-day outer limit.
No decision barring such an exemption had been shown. Though the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 does not apply to IBC proceedings, principles flowing from Order 7 Rule 6 could be invoked in an appropriate case. The Court held that the NCLAT ought to have invoked actus curiae neminem gravabit, referring to the Constitution Bench decision in A.R. Antulay v. R. S. Nayak. Absent such a direction, the litigant would suffer for the act of the court.
Order
The Court condoned the delay in filing the present appeal and allowed it. The impugned order dated 21 May 2026 was set aside.
Comp. App. (AT) (Ins) No. 503 of 2026 and I.A. No. 1951 of 2026 were restored to the file of the NCLAT for reconsideration of whether sufficient cause was shown to condone the delay beyond 30 days under Section 61(2) of the IBC. The NCLAT was directed to dispose of the interlocutory application at the earliest, and if it decided in the appellant’s favour, to register and decide the appeal in accordance with law. Parties were to bear their own costs.