Appellate maintainability was barred where a Supreme Court remand reserved all consequential issues to the assessment proceedings.

Where the Supreme Court had directed the Assistant Collector to finalise the assessment and had reserved all final, incidental, consequential and supplementary matters to be dealt with in those proceedings, the assessee could not bypass that direction by filing an appeal before the Collector (Appeals) against the later order. The appellate forum therefore lacked competence to entertain the appeal or decide it on merits. The Collector (Appeals) ought to have declined jurisdiction, and the order passed by that authority was liable to be set aside.

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Issues: Whether the appeal before the Collector (Appeals) was maintainable after the Supreme Court had directed the Assistant Collector to finalise the assessment and reserved liberty to the parties to seek directions before it.

Analysis: The Supreme Court's earlier order required the adjudicating authority to finalise the assessment and expressly contemplated that all final, incidental, consequential and supplementary matters would be decided in those proceedings, with liberty to mention the matter before the Supreme Court after fresh assessment. In that situation, the respondent could not bypass the Supreme Court and challenge the subsequent order before the Collector (Appeals). The Collector (Appeals), therefore, ought not to have entertained the appeal or decided it on merits.

Conclusion: The appeal before the Collector (Appeals) was incompetent and the impugned order passed by the Collector (Appeals) was liable to be set aside.

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