Stay application in appeal protects goods and suspends recovery until the appeal is decided.

Where an appeal is filed with a stay application, the appellate authority should decide the stay request promptly and, if the appeal has already been heard, pronounce it without delay. Pending that decision, coercive recovery action should not continue, and goods should not remain under detention. The operative direction was to expedite disposal of the appeal, keep further recovery proceedings in abeyance until the appeal is decided, and stay detention of the goods in the meantime.

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Issues: Whether recovery proceedings could continue and goods could remain detained pending decision of the appeal when a stay application had been filed along with the appeal.

Analysis: The appellate authority was expected to decide the stay application promptly and, where the appeal had already been heard, to pronounce the appeal without delay. In the meantime, it was considered to prevent coercive recovery action and to protect the goods from continued detention until the appeal was decided.

Outcome: Directions issued to decide the appeal expeditiously and to keep further recovery proceedings in abeyance until the appeal is decided, with the detention of the goods stayed in the meantime.

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