Mandatory pre-deposit under Central Excise law cannot be waived by Tribunal; constitutional challenge to the provision failed.

Section 35F of the Central Excise Act, as amended, requires the prescribed pre-deposit before an appeal can be entertained, and the Tribunal has no inherent power to waive that mandatory condition. The Court distinguished statutes that expressly confer hardship-based discretion and held that no such discretion can be implied where the language is mandatory and leaves no waiver window. It also rejected reliance on other enactments with different wording and noted that the provision's constitutional validity had already been upheld. The constitutional challenge therefore failed, and the pre-deposit requirement remained enforceable.

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Issues: Whether the appellate tribunal had any inherent discretion to waive the mandatory pre-deposit required under Section 35F of the Central Excise Act, 1944, and whether the provision was unconstitutional.

Analysis: Section 35F, as amended, uses mandatory language that the Tribunal or Commissioner (Appeals) shall not entertain an appeal unless the stipulated percentage of duty or penalty is deposited. The Court distinguished provisions that expressly permit discretion on hardship from Section 35F, which leaves no comparable window for waiver. It held that the Tribunal, being a creature of statute, must act within the limits prescribed by the statute and cannot read into the provision a power to relax the pre-deposit requirement. The comparative reliance on other enactments did not assist the petitioners because those provisions were materially different in wording and structure. The Court also noted that the vires of the provision had already been upheld.

Conclusion: The Tribunal had no inherent power to waive the mandatory pre-deposit under Section 35F, and the constitutional challenge did not succeed.

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