1. The question involved in this Criminal Appeal (unnumbered) is whether an appeal under S. 21 of the National Investigation Agency Act, 2008 (hereinafter referred to as the NIA Act) can be validly filed before the High Court after the expiry of the period of ninety days from the date of judgment, sentence or order appealed from and whether the High Court can condone the delay in filing the appeal under S. 5 of the Limitation Act. The Special Court for Trial of N.I.A. Cases, Kerala, Ernakulam dismissed the application filed by the appellant under S. 227 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to discharge the accused. The order was passed by the Court on 9.5.2014. The appellant received the copy of the order on 14.5.2014. The period of thirty days expired on 13.6.2014 and the period of ninety days expired on 12.8.2014. The appellant filed a Criminal Revision Petition on 7.10.2014 challenging the order of the court below. That Revision was dismissed as withdrawn on 17.11.2014 with liberty to file a Criminal Appeal against the order impugned. Thereafter, the appellant filed the Criminal Appeal on 25.11.2014. The appellant filed an application to condone the delay of 164 days in filing the appeal. The learned State Prosecutor for National Investigation Agency (NIA for short) submitted that the application to condone the delay is not maintainable and that the Court has no power to condone the delay and the appellant cannot invoke S. 5 of the Limitation Act.

2. The learned counsel for the appellant submitted that in spite of the second proviso to sub-section (5) of S. 21 of the N.I.A. Act, the power under S. 5 of the Limitation Act to condone delay is not excluded.

3. To comprehend the contentions put forward by either side, it is apposite to extract S. 21 of the N.I.A. Act:

"21. Appeals.--(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Code, an appeal shall lie from any judgment, sentence or order, not being an interlocutory order, of a Special Court to the High Court both on facts and on law.

(2) Every appeal under sub-section (1) shall be heard by a Bench of two Judges of the High Court and shall, as far as possible, be disposed of within a period of three months from the date of admission of the appeal.

(3) Except as aforesaid, no appeal or revision shall lie to any court from any judgment, sentence or order including an interlocutory order of a Special Court.

(4) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (3) of Section 378 of the Code, an appeal shall lie to the High Court against an order of the Special Court granting or refusing bail.

(5) Every appeal under this section shall be preferred within a period of thirty days from the date of the judgment, sentence or order appealed from:

Provided that the High Court may entertain an appeal after the expiry of the said period of thirty days if it is satisfied that the appellant had sufficient cause for not preferring the appeal within the period of thirty days:

Provided further that no appeal shall be entertained after the expiry of the period of ninety days."

4. The learned counsel for the appellant submitted that S. 29(2) of the Limitation Act will apply and that there is no express exclusion of S. 5 of the Limitation Act in the second proviso to sub-section (5) of S. 21 of the N.I.A. Act. He also submitted that if it is to be held that S. 5 of the Limitation Act is expressly excluded by the second proviso to sub-section (5) of S. 21 of the N.I.A. Act, how could it be said that Sections 4 and6 to 24 of the Limitation Act can be applied in a particular case. The learned counsel also submitted that it cannot be said that the time taken to get the certified copy of the order impugned cannot be excluded and if so S. 12 of the Limitation Act has to be applied. The learned counsel submitted that the object of the N.I.A. Act, 2008 is to constitute an investigation agency at the national level to investigate and prosecute certain types of offences and it is not a complete Code by itself. Ther