Supreme Court: Section 62 IBC Appeal Period Runs From NCLAT Pronouncement, CGST Plea Barred

The Supreme Court on 14 October 2026 dismissed the CGST department's appeal against the resolution plan of Samyu Glass Private Limited as time-barred, holding that the 45-day period for an appeal under Section 62 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 runs from the date the NCLAT pronounces its order, not from the date the appellant collects a certified copy. The judgment in Assistant Commissioner of Central Tax, CGST Division v. Sreenivasa Rao Ravinuthala, Civil Appeal No. 7882 of 2023 (2026 INSC 1121), was delivered by a bench of Justices S.V.N. Bhatti and N.V. Anjaria. The Court never reached the merits: the department had filed its appeal 76 countable days after the NCLAT order, 16 days beyond the absolute outer limit of 60 days, and the Court held it had no jurisdiction to condone that delay.

The ruling matters to anyone who files or defends appeals under the Code, including the tax departments that are among the most frequent appellants against approved resolution plans. Section 62(1) allows an appeal to the Supreme Court on a question of law within 45 days "from the date of receipt of such order", and Section 62(2) permits a further 15 days on sufficient cause. The department read "receipt" literally and argued that its clock started only on 11 October 2023, when the certified copy reached it. The Court rejected that reading in terms that leave little room for argument in future cases.

The ₹22.60 crore excise claim behind the appeal

Samyu Glass, an export oriented unit making glass containers, faced several Central Excise and Service Tax recovery proceedings between 2013 and 2017 and stopped manufacturing around November or December 2016, with the demands under challenge before CESTAT. Andhra Bank, now Union Bank of India, took the company into corporate insolvency under Section 7. When the department convened a Joint Pricing Committee meeting on 4 November 2019 to fix a reserve price for auctioning attached machinery, the resolution professional pointed out that the moratorium barred any such disposal. On 27 November 2019 the Deputy Commissioner of Central Tax filed a Form F claim of ₹22,60,32,948.

The resolution professional put forward a settlement of ₹4,32,80,741 under the Sabka Vishwas (Legacy Dispute Resolution) Scheme, 2019. The plan that the NCLT, Hyderabad approved on 13 August 2021 allotted only ₹1,34,657 towards the excise arrears. The department appealed to the NCLAT, Chennai in Company Appeal (AT) (CH) (INS) No. 346 of 2021, which confirmed the plan on 2 August 2023. The Section 62 appeal to the Supreme Court was filed on 21 November 2023. The second respondent raised a preliminary objection on limitation, and that objection decided the case.

Why "receipt of such order" does not mean the day the copy is collected

The department leaned on three points: the non-obstante clause in Section 61, the words "from the date of receipt of such order" in Section 62(1), and Sections 421 and 423 of the Companies Act, 2013, which it said entitled it to count from receipt of the judgment. It also relied on Sagufa Ahmed v. Upper Assam Plywood Products, (2021) 2 SCC 317, where limitation under the Companies Act ran from receipt because that Act gives a statutory right to a free certified copy.

The Court distinguished Sagufa Ahmed on exactly that ground. Under the Code, read with Order XIX Rule 3(2)(i) and Rule 40 of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, the obligation to apply for and produce a certified copy sits with the appellant; nobody sends it unasked. Section 238 gives the Code overriding effect over the Companies Act provisions the department cited. Rule 91 of the NCLAT Rules, 2016 requires every order to be pronounced in open court, and the reading of the operative portion counts as pronouncement, so knowledge, and with it limitation, begins on that day. In the Court's words, the phrase in Section 62(1) "cannot be read as the date on which a party chooses to apply for and collect a certified copy", and "a litigant cannot claim to await a copy to keep the limitation period suspended".

Section 238-A applies the Limitation Act, 1963 to proceedings under the Code "as far as may be". Section 12(2) of that Act excludes the day of the order and the time requisite for obtaining a certified copy, but its Explanation bars excluding any time the court takes to prepare the order before a copy is applied for. The judgment keeps two things firmly apart: exclusion of time under Section 12 is arithmetic that reduces the countable days, while condonation under Section 62(2) is a discretionary 15 days and no more. Together with the 45 days, that gives an absolute ceiling of 60 days. The bench followed V. Nagarajan v. SKS Ispat and Power, (2022) 2 SCC 244, which fixed the same principle for appeals to the NCLAT under Section 61 (the LiveLaw report of V. Nagarajan summarises that 2021 ruling), and the 2026 decision in CA Ramchandra Dallaram Choudhary v. Adani Infrastructure and Developers, 2026 SCC OnLine SC 1097, which held that the 28-day cure period under the Supreme Court Rules, being subordinate legislation, cannot stretch the statutory window.

How the Court counted 76 days against a 60-day ceiling

The computation in paragraph 15 of the judgment is the part practitioners will reuse. The table below sets it out as the Court did.

Thirty-five days of inaction before the copy was sought, plus 41 days after it was received, made 76 countable days. The Court held that the appeal was 16 days beyond the outer limit and that its power to condone delay had been exhausted at day 60. Accepting the department's approach, the bench said, "would nullify both the limitation period and the condonable period" and would "make the right of Appeal subject to an indefinite and fluctuating period of limitation". The appeal was dismissed with no order as to costs, and the NCLAT's confirmation of the plan stands untouched.

Applying the rule to an NCLAT order pronounced this month: an illustration

Suppose the NCLAT pronounces an order on 1 October 2026 and the aggrieved party applies for a certified copy on 16 October 2026, which the Registry delivers on 30 October 2026. The 15 days between pronouncement and the copy application count against the 45-day period. The 14 days the application was pending are excluded. On 30 October, 30 days of the statutory period remain, so the appeal must be filed by 29 November 2026. The 15 condonable days take the absolute last date to 14 December 2026. An appeal filed on 20 December 2026 is beyond the Court's jurisdiction to entertain, however good the explanation: 15 countable days before the copy application plus 51 days after receipt make 66 days against a ceiling of 60. Shifting the copy application earlier does not move the last date, because only the Registry's processing time is excluded; what the appellant cannot do is treat the day the copy arrives as a fresh start.

What the judgment means for tax departments and other appellants under the Code

For revenue authorities, the practical effect is harsh but clear. A claim admitted at ₹22.60 crore that the plan settled at ₹1.34 lakh will not be revisited because the appeal was late, and the Court did not examine whether the treatment of government dues in the plan was lawful. Departments that route a certified-copy application through internal approvals should treat the day of pronouncement as the trigger and apply for the copy within days, not weeks. The same discipline applies to resolution applicants, committees of creditors and promoters who intend to challenge an NCLAT decision.

The decision also closes the gap between the two appellate tiers. V. Nagarajan settled in 2021 that the 30-day period under Section 61 runs from pronouncement by the NCLT; this judgment confirms that the 45-day period under Section 62 runs from pronouncement by the NCLAT, with the same treatment of certified-copy time under Section 12(2). The Supreme Court has been equally unbending about limitation at the admission stage, as in its August 2026 ruling that quashed IBC proceedings over time-barred EPC dues. Counsel preparing a Section 62 appeal should record the pronouncement date, the copy application date and the delivery date on the face of the appeal and compute the countable days before filing, since a preliminary objection on limitation can now be decided on arithmetic alone.

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