Any person aggrieved by the order of the Hon’ble Adjudicating Authority i.e. National Company Law Tribunal (“NCLT”) under Section 61(1) of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (“IBC, 2016”) may prefer an appeal before the Hon’ble National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). As of date, there are two benches of NCLAT out of which the Principal Bench is in New Delhi and another bench is located in Chennai.
Now the question arises what is the jurisdiction of benches of NCLAT the jurisdiction is as under:
Another important question arises about the time limit of filing of appeal before the NCLAT, for which Section 61(2) provides that every appeal u/s 61(1) shall be filed within 30 days before the NCLAT; provided that the NCLAT may allow an Appeal even after 30 days on a sufficient cause, however the extended period allowed can not be more than 15 days. In simple words, if sufficient cause is there and that cause is approved by the NCLAT, then the appeal can be filed within 45 days.
Further, Section 238A of IBC, 2016 states that the provision of the Limitation Act, 1963 shall, as far as may be, apply to the proceedings before the NCLT, NCLAT, DRT, or DRAT. As per Section 12 of the Limitation Act, 1963 the period taken by court to prepare the copy of the shall stands excluded from the limitation period.
As a constructive reading, we may say that the time taken by the NCLT to provide the copy of the order may be excluded from the period as specified in Section 61(2) of the IBC, 2016.
Orders which can be challenged on limited grounds only:
- An Appeal against the order for Approving the Resolution Plan can be filed on limited grounds as mentioned in Section 61(3) of IBC, 2016.
- An Appeal against the Liquidation order can only be filed on grounds of material irregularity or fraud committed about such a liquidation order.
- An appeal against an order for initiation of corporate insolvency resolution process passed under sub-section (2) of section 54-O, may be filed on grounds of material irregularity or fraud committed about such an order.
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