Valid service of adjudication orders requires express authority to receive them; limitation does not run from service on a limited representative.

Service of an adjudication order starts limitation only when delivery is made to the person intended or to an authorised agent expressly empowered to receive it. An authorisation limited to pre-adjudication acts does not by itself authorise receipt of the final order, and a representative who handled the matter before the authority is not automatically treated as the recipient for service purposes. On that basis, the date of actual receipt by the assessee was treated as the date of communication, so the appeal was within limitation; the order was set aside and the matter remanded for fresh adjudication on merits.

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Issues: Whether service of the adjudication order on the assessee's authorised representative constituted valid service for computing limitation, and whether the subsequent appeal was time-barred.

Analysis: The service provision requires delivery of the order to the person for whom it is intended or to his authorised agent. The authorisation on record was confined to specific pre-adjudication acts and did not confer authority to receive the adjudication order. A legal representative dealing with the matter before the adjudicating authority was not treated as equivalent to an authorised agent for service of the final order. The date on which the assessee actually received the order copy was therefore taken as the date of communication, and the appeal filed thereafter was within the prescribed limitation period.

Conclusion: Service on the authorised representative was not valid service for limitation purposes. The appeal was not time-barred, and the impugned order was set aside with remand for fresh adjudication on merits.

Ratio Decidendi: For limitation, service of an adjudication order is valid only when made on the person intended or an authorised agent expressly empowered to receive it; service on a representative without such authority does not start the limitation period.

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