Statutory review authorization controls maintainability when an appeal is filed by an unauthorised officer and fails.

An appeal filed in the revenue review process was found defective because the Committee of Commissioners had authorised a different officer to present it. The Tribunal treated compliance with the specific authorization as mandatory, and a filing by an officer not named in that authorization was incapable of being maintained. On that ground, the appeals were dismissed as not maintainable.

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Issues: Whether the appeals filed by the Commissioner of Central Excise, Pune-III were maintainable when the appeal authorization was issued in favour of a different officer under the statutory review mechanism.

Analysis: The appeal was presented in pursuance of a review decision taken by the Committee of Commissioners and an authorization was issued to a specified Joint Commissioner (Tribunal) to file the appeal. The appeal before the Tribunal, however, was filed by the Commissioner of Central Excise, Pune-III, who was not the authorized officer. Since the appeal was not filed in accordance with the authorization, it was treated as defective at the threshold and incapable of being maintained.

Conclusion: The appeals were held to be not maintainable and were dismissed.

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