Strict proof of appellate authorisation under Central Excise law required; appeal was treated as filed without lawful authority.

An appeal under Section 35E of the Central Excise Act was treated as incompetent because the authorisation relied on an officer claiming to act on the Board's behalf, while the Board's order under Section 35E(1) was not appended. The text states that the statutory power to file such an appeal vests in the Commissioner and cannot be further delegated by that authority. On that footing, the filing authority had to be strictly established, and the appeal was concluded to have been filed without authority of law and therefore not maintainable.

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Issues: Whether the Revenue's appeal was maintainable when the authorisation under Section 35E of the Central Excise Act, 1944 was issued by an officer purportedly acting on the Board's behalf without the Board's order being appended.

Analysis: The authorisation produced referred to Section 35E(1) and Section 35E(2) of the Central Excise Act, 1944, but the Board's order under Section 35E(1) was not appended. In such a case, the statutory power to file the appeal vests in the Commissioner, and that authority cannot be further delegated by the Commissioner. Since the Tribunal had already taken the same view in earlier decisions, the appeal was examined on the footing that the facts were identical and that the filing authority had to be strictly shown.

Conclusion: The appeal was held to have been filed without authority of law and was not maintainable.

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