Sipcot vs Sculpt Engineering Pvt. Ltd

SCULPT ENGINEERING PVT LTD (Formerly Known as Sculpt Design Consultancy Private Limited) Having registered office at: No. 85, 2nd Floor, Thangaiya Nagar, 5th Main Road, K.K. Nagar, Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu 620 021. RESPONDENT No.1/APPLICANT

SURYABALAKI STEELS PRIVATE LIMITED, Rep by its Liquidator, M.S. Viswanathan, Having Reg No. IBBI/IPA-001/IP-P00674/2017-2018/11148 Plot No. 22, Vallalar Street, Nilamangai Nagar, Adambakkam, Chennai- 88. RESPONDENT No.2/RESPONDENT No.1

Present : For Appellant : Ms. Rachana, Advocate For Mr. K. Palaniappan, Advocate ORDER

(Hybrid Mode) 29.10.2025 [Oral Judgment: Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma, Member (Judicial)]

The Appellant in the instant company appeal, is Respondent No. 2 to

Interlocutory Application No. 1780 (CHE) of 2024 that, was preferred in TCP

Comp App (AT) (CH) (Ins) No. 543 /2025 Page 1 of 5 (IB) No. 575 of 2017, before the Ld. NCLT, Chennai Bench-II. The said IA that

was preferred by the Applicant/Respondent No. 1, has been allowed by the

impugned order dated 16.04.2025.

2. This company appeal is accompanied with various interlocutory

applications and particularly the one with which we would be concerned at this

stage are:

(i) Delay in Refiling being IA No. 1525/2025, where the Appellant has

sought a condonation of 58 days of delay that has chanced in

preferring the company appeal.

3. Heard the Ld. Counsel for the Appellant, on the aforesaid IA No.

1525/2025 seeking condonation of 58 days of delay in refiling. The grounds taken

therein for condonation of delay in re-filing are detailed in para 2 (c)(d)(e)(f) &

(). The facts are that the appeal was initially filed on 27.06.2025, it was returned

on 14.08.2025 to make certain minor procedural corrections and after rectifying

the same, the appeal re-filed on 13.10.2025, though the limitation period for re-

filing expired on 21.08.2025, resulting in a delay of 52 days as reported by

registry. The Appellant has submitted that, the delay has been exclusively on

account of administrative and circumstantial reasons, being that the newly

appointed intern in the legal cell of the Appellant organization who was in charge

of the litigation, could not trace the records and organize the documents in time

for preferring the appeal and that, the authorised representative suffered from

ailment during this period which hampered him from personally overseeing the

Comp App (AT) (CH) (Ins) No. 543 /2025 Page 2 of 5 process, which caused the delay in refiling. Considering the grounds taken in the

application, and in view of the fact that the aspect of delay in re-filing is

exclusively an issue between this Tribunal and the Appellant, the delay of 58 days

that has chanced in refiling of the instant company appeal would stand condoned.

Accordingly, IA No. 1525/2025 would stand 'allowed'.

4. The company appeal is also accompanied with a Condone Delay

Application being IA No. 1523/2025, where the Appellant has sought a

condonation of delay of 42 days of delay that, has chanced in preferring the

appeal.

5. For effective consideration of the application, few dates would be relevant,

which are given below:

(i) The impugned order was passed on 16.04.2025.

(ii) On 02.05.2025, the Appellant has applied for the certified copy of

the order.

(iii) The certified copy of the order was ready on 08.05.2025.

(iv) The copy of the said order was received by the Appellant on

21.05.2025.

(v) The appeal was e-filed on 27.06.2025

6. The Registry of this Tribunal has determined that the appeal has been filed

with a delay of 22 days computed on the following basis that from 16.04.2025 to

27.06.2025 is 72 days and that after excluding the 30 day period, which is the

Comp App (AT) (CH) (Ins) No. 543 /2025 Page 3 of 5 statutory time limit for preferring of appeal, there happens to be 42 days of delay.

However, the registry has deducted 20 days, (i.e., 02.05.2025 to 21.05.2025), the

time taken by the Ld. NCLT to procure the certified copy.

7. The Appellant himself admits that he has filed the appeal with a delay of

42 days. It is apparent that he has omitted to exclude the time spent in procuring

the certified copy.

8. In our view, since no reason has been offered in the application as to why,

the Appellant waited till 21.05.2025 for procuring the certified copy of the order,

when the copy of the order was made ready on 08.05.2025. the period from

08.05.2025 to 21.05.2025 cannot be counted for exclusion under the provisions

of Section 12 of the Limitation Act and only the period of 6 days from 02.05.2025

(the date of the application for certified copy) to 08.05.2025 (the date when the

copy of the order was made ready) will be reckoned as the period of exclusion.

In that eventuality, since the impugned order was pronounced on 16.04.2025 and

the company appeal was e-filed only on 27.06.2025, the time taken to file appeal

after excluding the period of 6 days from 02.05.2025 to 08.05.2025, is 66 days

which means that the appeal has been filed with a delay of 36 days.

9. Under either of the circumstances as narrated above, the delay, which is

being sought to be condoned by the Appellant (i.e., 42 days as per the appellant,

22 days as computed by the Registry and 36 days as reckoned by us, is beyond

the limit of 15 days as prescribed under the proviso to Section 61(2) of the I & B

Comp App (AT) (CH) (Ins) No. 543 /2025 Page 4 of 5 Code, 2016, and there is no scope of condonation of the said delay because of the

statutory bar created by Section 61 (2) of the I & B Code, 2016.

10. Therefore, 'company appeal' would stand 'dismissed' on the 'ground of

limitation'. Accordingly, the IA No. 1523/2025 would stand 'dismissed' and as a

consequence thereto, the Company Appeal (AT) (CH) (Ins) No. 543 /2025

would stand 'dismissed'.

[Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma] Member (Judicial)

[Jatindranath Swain] Member (Technical)

SN/MS/AK

Comp App (AT) (CH) (Ins) No. 543 /2025 Page 5 of 5