Monetary threshold for government litigation: separately filed appeals must be assessed individually, barring aggregation to meet filing limit.

Government litigation instructions require that each separately filed appeal arising from a composite tribunal order be treated as an individual case for application of the prescribed monetary threshold; values across separate appeals may not be aggregated. Applying that rule to gold-seizure appeals, the relevant value for maintainability must be calculated per appeal, and appeals failing to meet the monetary limit are not maintainable. Consequently, only the appeal whose individual value exceeds the threshold remains properly filed, while the other separately filed appeals are dismissed for failure to meet the monetary requirement.

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Issues: Whether the Department's appeals before the High Court are maintainable in view of the Central Government's litigation policy monetary threshold and whether values of separately filed appeals arising from a common seizure can be aggregated to meet the threshold.

Analysis: The appeals arise from gold seizures and separate appeals were filed against penalty and confiscation orders. The Government's instructions dated 02.11.2023 prescribe a monetary limit of Rs.1,00,00,000/- for filing appeals before the High Court. The clarification in the instructions dated 26.12.2014 explains that where a composite tribunal order disposes of more than one appeal, each appeal is a separate "case" and must be assessed against the threshold individually. Applying that interpretation to the present matters, the value relevant to each appeal must be calculated separately and the monetary threshold applied to each appeal on its own. The tabulated values show that only C.E.A. No.18 of 2025 exceeds the prescribed limit, while C.E.A. Nos.15, 16, 17, 19 and 21 of 2025 fall below the threshold.

Conclusion: The appeals C.E.A. Nos.15, 16, 17, 19 and 21 of 2025 are not maintainable for failure to meet the prescribed monetary limit and are dismissed; only C.E.A. No.18 of 2025 meets the monetary threshold.

Ratio Decidendi: For the purpose of the Government's monetary threshold under the national litigation policy, each separately filed appeal arising from a composite order must be treated as an individual case and assessed against the prescribed monetary limit independently; aggregation of values across separately filed appeals is not permissible.

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