The Supreme Court has held that a defective appeal filed under Section 62 of the IBC cannot be refiled after the expiry of 28 days from the date defects are notified by the Registry.
The bench of Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma ruled that permitting litigants to cure defects beyond the prescribed period would undermine the time-bound framework that forms the cornerstone of the insolvency regime.
A Bench dismissed an appeal filed by the liquidator of a corporate debtor, holding that the appeal had become time-barred and could not be revived through condonation of delay in refiling.
The appeal arose from a judgment of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) dated December 8, 2025. The appellant, a liquidator acting on behalf of a corporate debtor under liquidation, approached the Supreme Court under Section 62 of the IBC.
The appeal was filed on January 29, 2026, beyond the ordinary limitation period of 45 days but within the additional 15-day grace period available under Section 62(2) of the IBC. However, the appeal was found to be defective by the Registry. Although the defects were eventually cured, the appeal was refiled after a further delay of 82 days. Applications seeking condonation of both the filing delay and the refiling delay were moved before the Court.
The Court reiterated that the insolvency framework is designed to ensure speedy resolution of disputes and that adherence to statutory timelines is essential for achieving that objective.
Referring to earlier decisions including Mobilox Innovations Pvt. Ltd. v. Kirusa Software Pvt. Ltd., Kalparaj Dharamshi v. Kotak Investment Advisors Ltd., V. Nagarajan v. SKS Ispat & Power Ltd., and Tata Steel Ltd. v. Raj Kumar Banerjee, the Bench observed that the IBC is a special legislation where delays cannot be condoned beyond the limits expressly provided by Parliament.
The Court noted that Section 62 allows an appeal to be filed within 45 days, with a further grace period of 15 days upon showing sufficient cause. Thus, the maximum permissible period for filing an appeal is 60 days, beyond which the Court has no jurisdiction to condone the delay.
The central question before the Court was whether a litigant who files an appeal within the prescribed limitation period but in a defective form can subsequently cure those defects after a prolonged delay and still seek adjudication on merits.
Answering the question in the negative, the Bench held that a defect-free appeal alone can be treated as a valid appeal capable of being acted upon by the Registry and listed before the Court.
The Court warned that if litigants are allowed to file defective appeals merely to save limitation and thereafter rectify defects at their convenience, the statutory discipline imposed by the IBC would become meaningless.
According to the judgment, allowing such a practice would effectively permit parties to bypass the strict limitation provisions enacted by Parliament and frustrate the objective of speedy insolvency resolution.
The Court examined the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, which permit litigants to cure defects and refile appeals within 28 days from notification of defects by the Registry.
However, the Bench clarified that the procedural flexibility available under the Supreme Court Rules cannot override the substantive limitation scheme prescribed by the IBC.
It held that once the 60-day period under Section 62 of the IBC and the additional 28-day period available for curing defects expire, the right to pursue the appeal stands extinguished. No application for condonation of refiling delay would thereafter be maintainable.
The Court categorically ruled that there is no scope for curing defects after the expiry of 28 days in appeals filed under Section 62 of the IBC. Consequently, no question of condoning delay beyond that period arises.
The appellant relied on an earlier Supreme Court decision involving the same parties where delay in refiling an appeal before the NCLAT under Section 61 of the IBC had been condoned.
Rejecting this argument, the Court noted that the earlier order had been passed on peculiar facts and had expressly been declared not to constitute a precedent. The Court further observed that a litigant who has once received the benefit of a liberal interpretation of “sufficient cause” cannot assume that similar indulgence will automatically be granted at subsequent stages of litigation.
The Bench stressed that repeated condonation of delays across successive appellate stages would make limitations under the IBC progressively elastic and defeat the legislative objective of expedition and finality.
The explanation offered by the liquidator for the 82-day delay in refiling was that an officer in the liquidator’s office mistakenly believed that the required information had already been communicated to the Advocate-on-Record and that communication gaps arose because the officer subsequently left the organisation.
The Supreme Court found the explanation unsatisfactory and held that no sufficient cause had been shown either for the delay in filing the defective appeal or for the prolonged delay in refiling it.
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