Limitation Act, 1963:
Articles 62 and 137 – Applicability of – To application u/s. 7 of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code – Admission of application u/s. 7 applying Art. 62 – Held: Art. 62 is applicable to only suits – An application u/s. 7 would fall within the residuary Art. 137 – Applying Art. 137, in the facts of the present case, application u/s.
7 is time-barred – There is no equity about limitation – It is not open to the court to interpret Articles of Limitation Act, when applicability of a particular Article is clear.
Allowing the appeal, the Court
HELD: 1. Article 62 of the Limitation Act is out of the way, on the ground that it would only apply to suits. The present case being “an application” which is filed under Section 7 of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, would fall only within the residuary article
137. Time, therefore, begins to run on 21.07.2011, as a result of which the application filed under Section 7 would clearly be timebarred. [Para 6][227-A-B]
2. The Report of the Insolvency Law Committee itself stated that the intent of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code could not have been to give a new lease of life to debts which are already time-barred. Further, it is not for the Court to interpret, commercially or otherwise, articles of the Limitation Act when it is clear that a particular Article gets attracted. It is well settled that there is no equity about limitation - judgments have stated that often time periods provided by the Limitation Act can be arbitrary in nature. [Paras 6 and 7][227-C-D]
B.K.Educational Services Private Limited vs. Parag Gupta and Associates, 2018 SCC OnLine SC 1921 – referred to.
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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