Appeals filed by Revenue on basis of an invalid Review authorization deserve to be dismissed as not maintainable

The present appeal has been preferred by the Revenue before the Hon’ble CESTAT, Ahmadabad in terms of the Review Order No.R-02/2008, dated January 08, 2007 (the Review Order)signed by the Chief Commissioner of Central Excise, Ahmedabad and the Chief Commissioner of Central Excise, Vadodara against the Order-In–Original passed by the Commissioner of Central Excise, Ahmedabad – II (OIO).

Ankit Textiles and others (“the Respondents”) argued that the notified Review Committee of two Chief Commissioners had been constituted vide Notification No. 24/2005 – CE (NT) dated May 13, 2005 (“the Notification”)for Ahmedabad Central Excise Commissionerates.  The members of the said committee arethe Chief Commissioner of Central Excise, Ahmedabad and the Chief Commissioner of Customs, Ahmedabad authorized to review the orders passed by CCE Ahmedabad-I, II, III, Bhavnagar & Rajkot Commissionerates. Hence, the appeals filed by the Revenue are not maintainable as the competent committee of Chief Commissioners signing the authorization is not a committee constituted by the Central Government under the Notification.

The Hon’ble CESTAT, Ahmedabad relied on the following cases:

• CST Vs L. R. Sharma & Co. [2014 (33) STR 319 (Tri-Del)] and
• CCEVs Honda Motorcycles & Scooters india p. ltd [2014 (302) ELT 388 (Tri-Del)]

and held that the appeals filed by the Revenue on the basis of an invalid Review authorization deserve to be dismissed as not maintainable on this ground alone, without further going into the merits of these proceedings.

Accordingly the Hon’ble Tribunal upheld the OIO and rejected the appeals of the Revenue as non-maintainable.