Rule 3. Computation of time period

Chapter II · Powers and Functions

3.1 The rule

Where a period is prescribed by the Act or the Rules or these rules or under any other law or is fixed by the Appellate Tribunal for doing any act, in computing the time, the day from which the said period is to be reckoned shall be excluded, and if the last day expires on a day when the office of the Appellate Tribunal is closed, that day and any succeeding day or days on which the Appellate Tribunal remains closed shall also be excluded.

3.2 What it does

Rule 3 is the counting convention for every deadline that touches GSTAT. It does two things and only two: it throws away the first day, and it throws away closed days at the tail end.

What it conspicuously does not do is give anybody more time. Rule 3 tells you how to count the period; it is section 112(6) of the CGST Act, and nothing in these Rules, that lets the Tribunal forgive a period already run out.

3.3 Anatomy

(a) Trigger — deliberately the widest in the Rules. The rule bites wherever a period is prescribed by

• the Act (CGST/SGST/UTGST),
• the Rules (the CGST Rules and their State counterparts),
• these Rules,
• any other law, or
• is fixed by the Appellate Tribunal itself.

That last two limbs matter. "Any other law" pulls in periods arising outside the GST statutes altogether. And a period the Bench fixes from the chair — seven days to file a rejoinder under r.37, a fortnight to complete a defective filing under r.32 — is counted the same way. There is no separate convention for directions given orally in court.

(b) First limb — the day of reckoning is excluded. "The day from which the said period is to be reckoned shall be excluded." If an order is communicated on the 15th, the 15th is not day one; the 16th is. This mirrors s.9 of the General Clauses Act, 1897, but note that r.3 states it directly rather than relying on the General Clauses Act — so it applies of its own force even to periods the General Clauses Act would not reach, such as a period the Bench fixes in court.

(c) Second limb — closed days at the tail are excluded, not bridged. Read the drafting carefully, because the mechanism is unusual:

"if the last day expires on a day when the office of the Appellate Tribunal is closed, that day and any succeeding day or days on which the Appellate Tribunal remains closed shall also be excluded."

The rule does not say the period "shall extend to the next working day", which is how s.10 of the General Clauses Act and most court rules are drafted. It says the closed days are excluded from the computation. The practical result is usually identical — you file on the next open day — but the reasoning is different, and in one situation the difference is real: because closed days are excluded rather than the deadline being pushed, a run of closures (a weekend abutting a gazetted holiday, or a Bench closed for a local festival) drops out en bloc. The rule expressly contemplates this with "any succeeding day or days".

(d) Whose closure? The text says "the office of the Appellate Tribunal". Under s.109 GSTAT sits as a Principal Bench and State Benches, and r.11 has the calendar decided by the President and the Members. A State Bench may be closed for a State holiday when the Principal Bench is open. For an appeal filed at a State Bench, it is that Bench's office whose closure is in issue — the rule is concerned with the office where the act is to be done.

(e) The unresolved point — closure and the portal. Rule 18(1) makes online filing on the GSTAT Portal the default mode of instituting an appeal, and r.19 endorses a presentation date on the Form only "if the appeal is filed manually". A portal does not close for Diwali. Rule 3's second limb is drafted for a counter that shuts, and the Rules do not say what happens when the office is closed but the portal is accepting filings.

Note also that r.19 is now largely spent. Notification 13/2025-CT dated 17 September 2025, w.e.f. 22 September 2025, omitted the manual-filing provisos in CGST rr.110(1) and (2) and 111(1) and (2), so manual filing is no longer available. What now fixes the date of filing is CGST r.110(4): a provisional acknowledgement issues in Part A of FORM GST APL-02A and the final acknowledgement in Part B, and by the Explanation the appeal is treated as filed only when the final acknowledgement indicating the appeal number is issued. Where the order appealed against is on the common portal, the date of the provisional acknowledgement is the date of filing; where it is not, a self-certified copy must be submitted within seven days, failing which the date of submission becomes the date of filing.

The safe reading — and the one to act on — is that the second limb protects a party who could not file, and no practitioner should rely on a closure to buy a day when the portal was in fact available. Treat the closure limb as a shield against the Registry, never as a licence to file late. File on or before the last open day.

3.4 In practice

Facts. An order-in-appeal is communicated to Meridian Alloys Pvt Ltd on Friday 15 May 2026. The company wants to appeal to GSTAT.

Step 1 — find the period. Not in these Rules. Section 112(1) of the CGST Act gives three months from the date on which the order is communicated, or the date notified by the Government on the Council's recommendations for filing appeals before the Tribunal, whichever is later — the second limb having been inserted by the Finance (No. 2) Act, 2024. The example below runs the communication limb; where a notified date is later, it is that date from which the three months runs, and the arithmetic is the same.

Step 2 — apply the first limb. 15 May is the day from which the period is reckoned, so it is excluded. Counting begins 16 May 2026.

Step 3 — run the period. Three months from 15 May 2026 expires on 15 August 2026.

Step 4 — apply the second limb. 15 August 2026 falls on a Saturday, and it is also Independence Day. The office is closed. That day is excluded. The succeeding day, Sunday 16 August, is also a closed day, so it too is excluded.

Step 5 — the answer. The first day on which the office is open is Monday 17 August 2026. That is the last day to file.

Step 6 — the outer limit, for completeness. If the appeal is not filed by 17 August, s.112(6) permits the Tribunal to admit it within a further three months on sufficient cause. Counted the same way, that further period expires on 15 November 2026, a Sunday, and so runs to Monday 16 November 2026. Beyond that the Tribunal has no power to admit the appeal at all — the further three months is a ceiling on the Tribunal's discretion, not a second limitation period available for the asking.

What r.3 did not do. It did not tell us the period was three months, it did not authorise condonation, and it did not deal with pre-deposit. All three are s.112.

3.5 Checklist — computing any GSTAT deadline

• ☐ Identify the source of the period — the Act, the CGST Rules, these Rules, another law, or a direction of the Bench. Rule 3 covers all five.
• ☐ Fix the date of communication, not the date the order bears. Keep the proof of communication on file; a disputed limitation point turns on it.
• ☐ Exclude the first day. Begin counting from the following day.
• ☐ Run the period in months, not days, where the statute says months — three months from 15 May is 15 August, not 90 days from 15 May.
• ☐ Test whether the last day is a day the relevant Bench's office is closed — weekend, gazetted holiday, or a closure notified in the r.11 calendar.
• ☐ If closed, exclude that day and every consecutive closed day after it. The last day becomes the next open day.
• ☐ Diarise the s.112(6) outer limit at the same sitting — compute it now, not when the first deadline is missed.
• ☐ Confirm the pre-deposit is arranged to clear before filing (s.112(8)); the computation of time is worthless if the appeal is defective on payment.
• ☐ File on the last open day at the latest. Never plan to rely on the closure limb.

3.6 Where it goes wrong

3.7 Reads with

• s.112(1), (3), (6) CGST Act — the periods themselves, and the power to condone
• s.112(8) CGST Act — pre-deposit, which must be in place on filing
• s.9 and s.10, General Clauses Act, 1897 — the general analogues; r.3 states the first directly and departs from the second in mechanism
• r.11 — calendar of the Appellate Tribunal, which fixes when the office is closed
• r.14 — power to extend time, the Tribunal-side counterpart to this counting rule
• r.18(1), r.19 — online filing as the default, and endorsement of the presentation date on manual filings, now largely spent
• CGST r.110(4) — what actually fixes the date of filing: FORM GST APL-02A Part A and Part B, and the appeal treated as filed only on the final acknowledgement
• r.107 — enlargement of time
• r.32 — where a defective Form is returned, restarting a compliance period

3.8 In one line

Drop the first day, drop the closed days at the end — and remember that rule 3 only tells you how to count, never how to get more time.