Duty quantification must be determined by the adjudicating authority itself; delegation of recovery calculation led to remand.

An adjudicating authority must itself determine the duty demand and penalty and cannot leave quantification to a subordinate office. Because the impugned order did not finally quantify the recoverable duty or penalty and instead delegated the working out of the amount to the jurisdictional Range Office, the Tribunal held the adjudication was defective. The order was set aside and the matter remanded for fresh adjudication after hearing the appellants.

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Issues: Whether the adjudicating authority could leave quantification of duty and penalty to a lower authority and whether the order could stand when the demand had not been finally determined.

Analysis: The order under challenge did not itself determine the exact amount of duty or penalty and instead left the working out of the recoverable amount to the jurisdictional Range Office. In such circumstances, the Tribunal held that the adjudicating authority could not delegate the function of determining duty to a lower authority. Since the demand and penalty were not quantified by the adjudicating authority, the matter required fresh adjudication after hearing the appellants.

Conclusion: The impugned order was set aside and the matter was remanded to the adjudicating authority for fresh decision.

Final Conclusion: The appellants obtained relief to the extent that the adjudication was annulled for want of proper quantification and the dispute was sent back for reconsideration.

Ratio Decidendi: An adjudicating authority must itself determine the duty demand and cannot delegate that adjudicatory function to a subordinate authority; an order failing to quantify the demand is liable to be set aside and remanded.

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