Ramchandra Dallaram Choudhary v. Adani Infrastructure and Developers Pvt. Ltd.
Supreme Court of India, 1 June 2026, 2 judges, 2026 INSC 629
An appeal under Section 62 IBC must be filed within 45 days plus a 15-day grace period, and defects must be cured within 28 days under the Supreme Court Rules; beyond these limits no delay can be condoned.
Facts
The appellant, liquidator of a corporate debtor, filed an appeal under Section 62 of the IBC against an NCLAT order of 08.12.2025. The appeal was presented on 29.01.2026, seven days after the 45-day period but within the 15-day grace period. The Registry marked it defective and it was re-filed after a further delay of 82 days. Applications for condonation of the filing and re-filing delays were filed. Earlier in the same litigation, the Supreme Court, by order dated 05.05.2025, had condoned the appellant's re-filing delay in its appeal before the NCLAT under Section 61 and remanded the matter, recording that the order was not to be treated as a precedent. The appellant relied on that decision and on the general leniency shown to re-filing delays.
Questions before the Court
- Can the Supreme Court condone delay in re-filing an appeal under Section 62 IBC when the defects are not cured within the 28 days allowed by Order VIII Rule 6 of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013?
- Does the appellant's status as a liquidator, or the earlier condonation of re-filing delay in the same litigation, justify a relaxation?
What the Court held
- Section 62 IBC allows 45 days to appeal, with a further 15 days only on sufficient cause. The outer limit is 60 days, after which the appeal is barred and the Court has no power to condone the delay.
- An appeal is instituted within time only if it is free of defects. Defects in an appeal under Section 62 must be cured within 28 days of notification by the Registry; after that the right to appeal is extinguished and no application for condonation of re-filing delay arises.
- The Supreme Court Rules are subordinate legislation and cannot override the IBC. The more lenient standard for re-filing delay applies under general laws, but Section 62 is a complete code for appeals.
- The liquidator's position as a neutral officer does not justify invoking Article 142 to override the statutory timelines, and the earlier indulgence in the same litigation was confined to its facts and does not warrant serial condonations. The appeal was dismissed as time-barred.
Why it matters
The judgment sets a fixed outer limit for appeals to the Supreme Court under Section 62 IBC: 60 days for filing and 28 days for curing defects, with no power to condone delay beyond either. It holds that the Supreme Court Rules cannot extend IBC timelines, that a liquidator's position as a neutral officer does not justify using Article 142 to override them, and that indulgence shown at one stage of IBC litigation does not carry over to the next.
In the Court's words
Copied from the official judgment; each passage links to its page.
“At the outset, it must be borne in mind that the scheme of limitation under the IBC is a strict and time-bound one. The concept of condonation of delay itself is alien to the statutory framework beyond the period expressly contemplated under the statute. Section 62 of the IBC permits an appeal to be filed before this Court within 45 (forty-five) days, with a further grace period of only 15 (fifteen) days, and that too, only upon sufficient cause being shown. Thus, the outer limit statutorily permissible is 60 (sixty) days, beyond which the appeal itself becomes barred and the Court's jurisdiction to condone the delay ceases.”
“Consequently, no litigant can be permitted to subvert the statutory scheme by seeking condonation of re-filing delay beyond the period of 28 (twenty-eight) days after having initially lodged a defective appeal. Once the window of 60 (sixty) days prescribed by the IBC, followed by the window of 28 (twenty-eight) days in re-filing the appeal upon curing of defects permitted by the SCR is shut, the right to appeal stands extinguished.”
“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.”
“A litigant who has once secured indulgence in relation to delay cannot legitimately proceed on the assumption that further defaults engendered at the next appellate stage would automatically attract a similar exercise of discretion. To hold otherwise would render the law of limitation under the IBC progressively elastic at every successive stage of challenge, defeating the legislative objective of expedition and finality.”
Provisions interpreted
- Section 62, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016
- Order VIII Rule 6, Supreme Court Rules, 2013
- Article 142, Constitution
Case and bench
- Parties
- CA Ramchandra Dallaram Choudhary v. Adani Infrastructure and Developers Private Limited
- Case
- Civil Appeal No. ___/2026 @ D.No. 5988/2026
- Decided
- 1 June 2026
- Bench
- Dipankar Datta, Satish Chandra Sharma
- Opinions
- Unanimous. Judgment of the Court by Dipankar Datta, J.