Dismissing the National Spot Exchange’s (NSEL) plea to condone the delay in filing its appeal against rejection of its claim for Rs 673.85 crore from the debt-laden Dunar Foods, the Supreme Court on Tuesday mentioned courts have no energy to do so, as it would quantity to legislation.
A Bench led by Justice MR Shah mentioned Parliament has not carved out any exception to a circumstance exactly where limitation to file an appeal beyond a statutory period could be condoned.
It mentioned there may well be circumstances exactly where a party may well have genuine causes like illness/ accident and is not in a position to file an appeal inside the statutory period of limitation, and even inside the extended maximum period of appeal which could be condoned.
“… it may cause hardship, however, unless Parliament has carved out any exception by a provision of law, the period of limitation has to be given effect to. Such powers are only with the Parliament and the legislature. The courts have no jurisdiction and/or authority to carve out any exception. If the courts carve out an exception, it would amount to legislate which would in turn might be inserting the provision to the statute, which is not permissible,” the apex court mentioned.
Rejecting the NSEL’s plea for condonation of delay on the ground that the quantity involved is enormous, the best court mentioned, “… what cannot be done directly considering the statutory provisions cannot be permitted to be done indirectly, while exercising the powers under Article 142 of the Constitution of India.”
It also mentioned that NCLAT has no jurisdiction and/or energy to condone the delay exceeding 15 days.
In this case, NSEL had preferred an appeal prior to the NCLAT soon after a delay of 44 days, which was beyond the maximum 15 days period that could be condoned below Section 61(2) of the IBC. The appellate tribunal had dismissed the appeal on the ground of limitation by observing that it has no jurisdiction and/or energy to condone the delay exceeding 15 days.
The NCLT had admitted SBI’s plea for initiating the insolvency proceedings against Dunar Foods on the ground that the corporate debtor had taken credit limits by hypothecating the commodities kept in the warehouses of NSEL.
In response to the public announcement by the Interim Resolution Professional (IRP) for inviting claims from creditors, NSEL had submitted a claim of `673.85 crore. Besides, it had informed the IRP about a decree that was passed against PD Agro for Rs 633.66 crore as the ED had identified that Rs 744 crore had been siphoned off by PD Agro Processors to Dunar Foods.
The IRP had rejected the NSEL’s claim on the ground that there was no privity of contract in between the spot exchange and Dunar Foods. The NCLT had upheld the IRP’s selection not to contain the claim of the appellant as a creditor. NSEL had then filed an appeal prior to the NCLAT soon after a delay of 44 days.