Appealable order test: departmental letters finalising provisional assessment without adjudication were not treated as appealable orders.

Inter-departmental letters finalising a provisional assessment, without formal adjudication of the dispute or determination of rights and liabilities, were not appealable orders. The communications were issued in the assessee's absence and merely directed finalisation of the assessment subject to quantification of differential duty on depot sale details. Because they lacked the character of a legal order deciding the controversy, the assessee was not required to file a separate appeal against them before challenging the refund-related proceedings. The Tribunal should have examined the dispute on merits rather than rejecting the appeal on maintainability, and the maintainability objection was rejected.

---

---

Issues: Whether inter-departmental letters finalising provisional assessments, without formal adjudication of the dispute, could be treated as appealable orders so as to render the assessee's appeal not maintainable.

Analysis: The assessment was finalised through letters exchanged between departmental , but those communications did not embody any formal adjudication of the controversy between the parties. They were issued in the absence of the assessee and merely directed finalisation of provisional assessment subject to quantification of differential duty on the basis of depot sale details. Such communications lacked the character of legal orders determining rights or liabilities and therefore could not be treated as orders requiring a separate appeal before the assessee could challenge the refund-related proceedings. The Tribunal ought to have examined the dispute on merits instead of rejecting the appeal on a preliminary maintainability objection.

Conclusion: The objection to maintainability was rejected and the assessee succeeded on this issue.

Ratio Decidendi: A departmental communication that does not amount to a formal adjudication of the dispute and does not determine the parties' rights or liabilities is not an appealable order.

---