Defective appeal authorisation under Central Excise procedure led to non-maintainability and threshold rejection of the appeals.

Appeal papers must be filed with valid authorisation and in the prescribed manner, and a mere procedural defect will not save a filing where the authorising document itself is unsigned by the empowered officer. The Tribunal noted that Rule 11 of the CEGAT (Procedure) Rules allows amendment of defective memoranda in appropriate cases, but treated the absence of a signed authorisation under Section 35B of the Central Excise Act as a serious irregularity that could not be cured on these facts. The appeals were therefore not maintainable in their present form and were rejected at the threshold.

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Issues: Whether the appeals were maintainable when the authorisation and supporting papers were not signed by the empowered officer and the appeal papers were filed in a defective manner, and whether the defect could be cured under the procedural rules.

Analysis: The authorisation under Section 35B of the Central Excise Act was not signed by the Commissioner and the grounds of appeal also bore only a reproduced signature. The Tribunal treated this as a serious procedural irregularity, noting that Rule 11 of the CEGAT (Procedure) Rules permits amendment of defective memoranda in appropriate cases, but that the present case was exceptional because the appellant had not even issued a signed authorisation. The filing was held to be contrary to the prescribed manner of appeal.

Conclusion: The appeals were not maintainable in their present form and were dismissed at the threshold.

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