Delay beyond statutory limits in filing an appeal under the Arbitration Act cannot be condoned.

1. This appeal has been filed under S.37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act (hereinafter referred to as ''the Act'') against the order dated 19.08.2019 passed by the 3rd Additional District Judge, Bhopal in MJC(AV) No.09/2018 whereby the objection filed by the appellant under S.34 of the Act against the arbitral award dated 23.02.2017 has been rejected.

2. This appeal has been filed on 12.08.2020 after 206 days of passing the order by the Court below. After excluding the coping period and holidays etc. and also excluding the 90 days period available for filing the appeal, there is a delay of 103 days in filing this appeal.

3. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of Union of India v. Varindera Constructions Limited , reported in (2020) 2 SCC 111 has taken the view that since S.34 application has to be filed within a maximum period of 120 days including the grace period of 30 days therefor, an appeal filed from the selfsame proceedings under S.37 of the Act should be covered by the same drill and filing an appeal beyond the period of 120 days under S.37 of the Act should not be allowed as it will defeat the overall statutory purpose of arbitration proceedings. The Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Varindera Constructions Limited(supra) in this regard has held as under:
"3. Ordinarily, we would have applied the said judgment to this case as well. However, we find that the impugned Division Bench judgment dated 10-4-2013 [Union of India v. Varindera Constructions Ltd., 2013 SCC OnLine Del 6511] has dismissed the appeal filed by the Union of India on the ground of delay. The delay was found to be 142 days in filing the appeal and 103 days in refiling the appeal. One of the important points made by the Division Bench is that, apart from the fact that there is no sufficient cause made out in the grounds of delay, since a S.34 application has to be filed within a maximum period of 120 days including the grace period of 30 days, an appeal filed from the selfsame proceeding under S.37 should be covered by the same drill.
4. Given the fact that an appellate proceeding is a continuation of the original proceeding, as has been held in Lachmeshwar Prasad Shukul v. Keshwar Lal Chaudhuri [ Lachmeshwar Prasad Shukul v. Keshwar Lal Chaudhuri , 1940 SCC OnLine FC 10 : AIR 1941 FC 5 ], and repeatedly followed by our judgments, we feel that any delay beyond 120 days in the filing of an appeal under S.37 from an application being either dismissed or allowed under S.34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act , 1996 should not be allowed as it will defeat the overall statutory purpose of arbitration proceedings being decided with utmost dispatch.
5. In this view of the matter, since even the original appeal was filed with a delay period of 142 days, we are not inclined to entertain these special leave petitions on the facts of this particular case. The special leave petitions stand disposed of accordingly. Pending applications, if any, also stand disposed of."
Subsequently, the same issue came up before the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of N.V. International v. The State of Assam and others , reported in (2020) 2 SCC 109 : (AIROnline 2019 SC 1724) and the Hon'ble Supreme Court taking note of the earlier judgment in the case of Varindera Constructions Limited (supra) has held as under:
"5. We may only add that what we have done in the aforesaid judgment is to add to the period of 90 days, which is provided by statute for filing of appeals under S.37 of the Arbitration Act, a grace period of 30 days under S.5 of the Limitation Act by following Lachmeshwar Prasad Shukul and others (supra), as also having regard to the object of speedy resolution of all arbitral disputes which was uppermost in the minds of the framers of the 1996 Act, and which has been strengthened from time to time by amendments made t