Statutory appellate remedy bars treating an adjudication order as a nullity and reopening the same dispute by fresh proceedings.

An allegedly illegal or jurisdictionally defective adjudication order cannot be treated as a nullity where the statute provides a specific appellate remedy to challenge it. On the facts described, the Assistant Collector retained jurisdiction because the notice and adjudication did not allege fraud, suppression or misstatement sufficient to trigger transfer of pending proceedings under the 1985 amendment. Any challenge to the original order had to be pursued through the prescribed statutory channel, not by reopening the same dispute through fresh proceedings on identical facts. In that setting, no referable question of law arose, and the reference application was correctly rejected.

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Issues: Whether the order passed by the Assistant Collector was a nullity so as to permit fresh proceedings by the Additional Collector, and whether any question of law arose warranting reference to the High Court.

Analysis: The notice and adjudication did not contain allegations of fraud, suppression, or misstatement so as to attract the special transfer of pending proceedings under Section 8 of the Central Excises and Salt (Amendment) Act, 1985. The Assistant Collector therefore retained jurisdiction over the matter. Even assuming some illegality in the original order, the Act provided a specific statutory remedy under Section 35E(2) of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 for challenging such an order through the proper appellate channel. Fresh reopening of the same dispute by a different authority on the same facts, without first using that remedy, was not permissible. On that basis, no referable question of law arose from the Tribunal's earlier order.

Conclusion: The reference application was rightly rejected, and the Department could not sustain the fresh proceedings as a valid basis for reference.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a statutory appellate remedy exists for challenging an allegedly illegal or jurisdictionally defective adjudication order, the order cannot be ignored as a nullity so as to justify parallel fresh proceedings on the same cause of action.

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