Arbitration: Supreme Court - Delay In Filing An Appeal Under Section 37

Introduction

In a landmark decision¹, the Supreme Court of India ("Supreme Court") held that delay beyond 120 days in filing an appeal under section 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 ("Arbitration Act") was condonable. In doing so, the Supreme Court overruled its decision in N.V. International v. State of Assam².

Facts

In two of the three appeals before the Supreme Court, the High Courts of Bombay and Delhi had respectively; dismissed appeals filed by the Maharashtra Government and by the Central Government and refused to condone the delay in the filing of appeals under section 37 of the Arbitration Act beyond 120 days. The third appeal arose from a decision of the Madhya Pradesh High Court which condoned delay in filing an appeal under section 37, under section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 ("Limitation Act"), in the ground that there was a conflict between the decisions of the Supreme Court in NV International and Consolidated Engg.