Appellate authority cannot abdicate its function by remanding jurisdictional issues for decision by a lower authority.

An appellate authority under section 62 of the Estate Duty Act may order further enquiry before disposing of an appeal, but it cannot delegate matters within its own competence to the lower authority. The question whether the appeal was properly instituted, including alleged impersonation and validity of the appeal, had to be decided by the Appellate Controller himself and could not be remanded for determination. Remand is permissible only where the appellate authority cannot reach a conclusion on the material already before it and genuine further enquiry is necessary. The remand order was therefore invalid and was set aside, with the matter sent back for disposal according to law.

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Issues: Whether the Appellate Controller could remand the appeal to the Controller for enquiry into impersonation and the validity of the appeal instead of deciding the matter himself.

Analysis: Section 62 of the Estate Duty Act, 1953 empowers the Appellate Controller to make or cause further enquiry before disposing of an appeal and thereafter to pass such order as he thinks fit. That power does not authorise delegation of the appellate function on matters which the Appellate Controller is himself required to decide. The question whether the appeal was properly instituted lay within his own jurisdiction and could not be sent back to the Controller for decision. A remand is justified only where the appellate authority cannot reach a conclusion on the material before it and further enquiry is genuinely necessary; it cannot be used to abdicate the appellate function.

Conclusion: The remand order was invalid and was set aside. The matter was sent back to the Appellate Controller for disposal according to law, with the appeal succeeding for statistical purposes.

Ratio Decidendi: An appellate authority cannot delegate or abdicate its atory function on matters within its own competence by remitting them to a lower authority; remand is permissible only to enable necessary further enquiry where the appellate authority cannot itself reach a conclusion on the existing record.

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