45 Days, Then 15 More
Count from the date of the NCLAT order. You have 45 days to file in the Supreme Court. That is the normal period, not a target.
Miss that date and only one narrow window remains. The Court may accept filing within the next 15 days if sufficient cause is shown. The test is strict. Office load or counsel being busy won't do. You need dates, reasons, and proof that you moved promptly once the order was available.
On day 61, there is no discretion left. The Court can't stretch the limit to 70 or 90 days, however arguable the merits. The design is quick challenge, quick answer, then everyone moves on.
Section 62 IBC Sets 60-Day Cap
The provision allows an appeal to the Supreme Court from an order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal. It lies on a question of law. The aggrieved person must file within 45 days from receipt of the order, with a proviso to entertain an appeal filed within a further 15 days if satisfied there was sufficient cause for delay.
Close reading leaves little room. The law doesn't permit the Court to condone any delay it thinks fit. It says 45 days, plus 15 more on sufficient cause. The longer grace period found in some civil appeals doesn't apply here. The Code is a special law with its own timetable.
For a company or creditor, the timetable bites early. Board approvals, instructions, and counsel's advice must all fit inside 45 days. Leave the file for a month and you're already seeking indulgence. Leave it for two months and there's no remedy left.
Certified Copies Do Not Buy Time
Confusion usually starts with certified copies. Lawyers often wait for the certified copy before drafting, and Section 12 of the Limitation Act, 1963 helps up to a point. It says time reasonably required to obtain the copy shall be excluded. In plain terms, the days the registry takes don't count against you.
The Court has now fixed the boundary of that benefit. Exclusion covers time taken by the office to supply the copy. It doesn't cover the litigant's own delay in applying for it. If the order comes on day one and you apply on day twenty, those twenty days are yours.
Take 1 October as an example. Had you applied at once, the registry might have delivered the copy in seven days. Instead you apply on 20 October and get it on 27 October. You can seek exclusion of the seven days the registry needed, not the nineteen days you waited. The Court will ask when you applied, when the copy was ready, and whether you acted with care.
No Late Excuses After Day 60
Most pleas for condonation of delay collapse at this stage. Counsel argues that time spent waiting for a copy should be ignored. The record shows a gap between pronouncement and application. That gap sinks the case. Diligence has to be shown from the start, not after limitation has almost run out.
That strictness comes from the Code's design. It replaced a slow recovery system with a collective, time-bound process, and the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process carries its own 330-day frame. Appeals were never meant to linger. Liberal extensions would leave approved plans under a cloud, and resolution applicants would hold back funds while lenders hold back credit.
A successful resolution applicant feels this first. After approval by the committee of creditors and the Tribunal, it wants closure before putting in fresh money. A losing creditor on valuation or priority wants a fast answer before distribution. Neither can use an appeal filed on the ninetieth day.
What Companies Must Do Now
Get the web copy or free copy on the day of pronouncement. Apply for the certified copy on the next working day. Note the application number and date, follow up in writing, and keep proof of each step. Sufficient cause is proved with paper, not memory.
Put a 40-day internal deadline on the draft, leaving room for filing and curing defects. If you cross 45 days, file within the next 15 days with a day-wise explanation and the certified-copy trail attached. After 60 days, there is no filing to make, the NCLAT order attains finality, and the resolution proceeds on its terms.
