The increasing digitisation of judicial proceedings has transformed the manner in which litigants institute and pursue cases. While electronic filing has made access to courts and tribunals more convenient, it has also created a new procedural question: who should bear the consequences when a litigant attempts to file within limitation but the court or tribunal's own electronic system prevents the filing from being completed?

The Supreme Court considered this question in Regional Provident Fund Commissioner-II v. Ms. Mamta Binani & Ors., where a Bench comprising Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Sheel Nagu set aside an order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) that had dismissed an appeal as time-barred. The Supreme Court held that where the delay was caused by a technical failure in the NCLAT's own e-filing system, the litigant could not be made to suffer for the failure of the institutional mechanism through which the filing was required to be made.


Background of the Dispute

The dispute arose from a resolution plan submitted in respect of Rolta India Limited. The resolution plan submitted by Ashdan Properties Private Limited was approved by the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Mumbai, on 15 December 2025.

Aggrieved by the approval of the resolution plan, the Regional Provident Fund Commissioner-II sought to challenge the NCLT's decision before the NCLAT.

The difficulty arose at the stage of filing the appeal. The appellant's counsel attempted to e-file the appeal on 28 January 2026, but the filing could not be completed because of technical difficulties with the NCLAT portal, particularly problems concerning OTP delivery. A further attempt was made on 29 January 2026, which was the last day of the permissible period. The Registry informed the appellant that a backend technical defect was under repair.

The appeal was eventually e-filed on 30 January 2026, one day beyond the outer statutory period under Section 61(2) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC). The NCLAT subsequently dismissed the appeal as time-barred.


Limitation Under Section 61(2) of the IBC

Section 61(2) of the IBC prescribes the limitation period for appeals against orders of the NCLT.

An appeal must ordinarily be filed within 30 days from the date of the order. The NCLAT may, where sufficient cause is shown, extend this period by a further 15 days, but the statute does not confer power to condone delay beyond this additional period.

In the present case, the NCLAT treated 29 January 2026 as the expiry of the maximum 45-day period. Since the appeal was actually e-filed on 30 January, the NCLAT concluded that it had no jurisdiction to condone the delay.

The NCLAT relied upon earlier Supreme Court decisions concerning the strict limitation period under Section 61(2), including V. Nagarajan v. SKS Ispat and Power Ltd., National Spot Exchange Ltd. v. Anil Kohli and RP for Dunar Foods Ltd. v. Tata Steel Ltd.


The Supreme Court's Approach

The Supreme Court agreed with one part of the NCLAT's reasoning: Section 61(2) does not permit the NCLAT to simply condone a delay beyond the statutory 45-day outer limit.

However, the Court found that this was not the complete answer to the dispute.

The critical question was whether the one-day difference should be treated as a conventional case of delay at all when the appellant had already made bona fide attempts to file the appeal within the prescribed period.

The Court noted that the NCLAT Registry's own report confirmed that the appellant had attempted to e-file the appeal beginning on 28 January 2026 and continued attempting to file it within the permissible period. The failure to complete the filing was attributed to technical problems with the NCLAT's system rather than negligence or inaction on the part of the appellant.

The Supreme Court therefore framed the central issue in substance as whether a litigant should be denied access to the appellate remedy when the filing could not be completed within limitation because of a technical failure attributable to the tribunal's own Registry.

The Court answered this in the negative.


The Principle of Actus Curiae Neminem Gravabit

The most significant aspect of the judgment is the Court's invocation of the Latin maxim actus curiae neminem gravabit, which means that an act of the court shall prejudice no person.

The Court held that while limitation provisions under the IBC must ordinarily be strictly followed, the present case involved a fundamentally different circumstance. The inability to file within the prescribed period was not caused by ignorance of the law, negligence, laches or inaction by the litigant. Instead, the institutional system through which the filing had to be made had failed.

The Court observed that limitation can operate against a litigant only when the court or tribunal is capable of receiving the papers that the litigant is attempting to present. Where a litigant makes a bona fide attempt to file within time but the tribunal's own system prevents the filing from being completed, the litigant cannot be deprived of the statutory remedy merely because the technical filing was ultimately recorded after the limitation period.


Strict Limitation and Access to Justice

The judgment is significant because it does not dilute the statutory limitation period under Section 61(2).

The Supreme Court expressly recognised that the timelines prescribed by the IBC must be strictly adhered to. The decision therefore should not be understood as creating a general judicial power to extend the 45-day limitation period whenever a litigant faces difficulty.

Instead, the Court distinguished between a genuine delay attributable to a litigant and a failure to complete filing caused by the court or tribunal's own system.

This distinction is important. A litigant who simply fails to file an appeal within 45 days cannot rely upon this judgment as a general extension of limitation. The factual foundation of the present case was the appellant's documented and bona fide attempts to file within time and the NCLAT Registry's own confirmation regarding the technical failure.


The First Bona Fide Attempt as the Relevant Date

The Supreme Court's reasoning effectively places importance on the first bona fide attempt to institute the proceeding.

Rather than treating 30 January 2026 as an unexplained one-day delay, the Court considered the circumstances in which the filing eventually occurred. The technical problem prevented the tribunal from receiving the appeal despite the appellant's attempts to present it within the statutory period.

The Court consequently held that the appropriate course was to treat the first bona fide attempt to e-file as the relevant date of presentation for purposes of avoiding prejudice caused by the system failure.

This approach is particularly relevant as courts and tribunals increasingly depend upon electronic filing systems. Procedural rules governing limitation must operate alongside the technological infrastructure through which those rules are implemented.


Relevance of Order VII Rule 6 CPC

The Court also referred to the underlying principle reflected in Order VII Rule 6 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, concerning exclusion of time in appropriate circumstances.

Although the CPC does not strictly govern proceedings under the IBC in the same manner as ordinary civil proceedings, the Supreme Court noted that the underlying procedural principle could be invoked where appropriate.

The Court treated the provision as reflecting a broader principle that procedural rules should not result in prejudice to a litigant where the circumstances responsible for the delay are beyond the litigant's control.


Distinguishing Earlier Precedents

The NCLAT had relied upon several Supreme Court decisions concerning the strict 30+15-day limitation period under Section 61(2).

The Supreme Court, however, held that those authorities did not govern the present factual situation because they concerned circumstances materially different from the technical failure involved in the present case.

The Court referred to the principle stated in Regional Manager v. Pawan Kumar Dubey, that an additional or different fact can make a significant difference to the conclusion reached in a case, even where similar legal principles are involved.

Thus, the judgment does not overrule the established rule that NCLAT cannot ordinarily condone an appeal filed beyond the maximum period prescribed by Section 61(2). Instead, it addresses the preliminary question of whether a filing prevented by a tribunal's own technical failure should be treated as having been presented only on the date when the system finally accepted it.


The Supreme Court's Final Direction

The Supreme Court set aside the NCLAT's order dated 21 May 2026 and restored the relevant appeal and application to the NCLAT.

Importantly, the Court did not itself finally decide that the delay should be condoned in the ordinary sense. Instead, the NCLAT was directed to reconsider whether sufficient cause existed for condoning the delay beyond the initial 30-day period under Section 61(2).

If the NCLAT finds sufficient cause, the appeal is to be registered and decided in accordance with law. The parties were directed to bear their own costs.


Significance of the Judgment

The decision is significant for the intersection of limitation law and digital court administration.

Electronic filing is now an integral part of modern judicial procedure. While litigants are expected to comply strictly with filing deadlines, the infrastructure through which compliance is achieved must also remain functional. Where the system itself prevents a bona fide litigant from completing a filing despite timely attempts, treating the eventual system-generated filing date as conclusive may produce a procedural consequence unrelated to the litigant's conduct.

The judgment therefore establishes an important distinction between judicially impermissible extension of statutory limitation and preventing prejudice caused by an institutional failure in receiving a filing.

The decision also demonstrates the continuing relevance of the principle of actus curiae neminem gravabit in modern procedural law. The maxim operates not as a replacement for statutory limitation but as a principle against allowing a court or tribunal's own procedural or technological failure to deprive a litigant of a legal remedy.


Conclusion

In Regional Provident Fund Commissioner-II v. Ms. Mamta Binani & Ors., the Supreme Court balanced the strict limitation regime under Section 61(2) of the IBC with the fundamental requirement that procedural mechanisms should not operate unfairly against a litigant for reasons beyond their control.

The judgment does not create an unrestricted exception to the 45-day limitation period. Rather, it recognises that where a litigant has made a bona fide attempt to file within time and the filing is prevented by the tribunal's own technical system, the period affected by that institutional failure cannot automatically be used to defeat the litigant's statutory remedy.

The case consequently provides an important judicial response to a modern procedural problem: as courts move from physical filing counters to digital portals, responsibility for procedural compliance must also account for failures in the technological systems through which justice is administered.