ORDER
H.R. Syiem, Member (T)
1. At the hearing today the respondent M/s. Kusum Products did not appear.
2. The learned SDR, Mr. Krishnamurthy submitted to the court two documents one, an order purporting to be an authorisation from the Collector of Central Excise, Calcutta authorising the Assistant Collector to file the appeal before this Tribunal; another document he produced before us is a paper listing dates on which various actions were taken in the office prior to the appeal, to explain the delay of two months in filing it. These two documents were produced after the department had been directed to do so by the Tribunal a number of times.
3. The order authorising the Assistant Collector to file appeal is worded as follow :-
“I hereby authorise Assistant Collector (Tribunal and Review), Collec-torate of Central Excise, Calcutta-II Calcutta to act on my behalf in the matter of filing appeal/application/cross-objections/statement of reference before the Customs, Excise and Gold (Control) Appellate Tribunal/Collector (Appeals) in terms of Section (this portion is illegible) of the Central Excises and Salt Act, 1944 and Sections 81(3), 81(5), (illegible) of Gold (Control) Act, 1968. This order was signed on 24-9-1986, one year after the appeal was filed in this Tribunal. It is further more a blanket authority given under certain sections to file appeal and to act on his behalf in certain matters. It is more like a power of attorney than an authorisation under Section 35B(2) and cannot meet, on its terminology, the requirements of Section 35B which demands that if the Collector of Central Excise is of opinion that an order passed by the Collector Appeals under Section 35A is not legal or proper, he may direct a Central Excise Officer authorised by him on this behalf to appeal to the Appellate Tribunal against such order. The Collector must first come to the opinion that the order of the Collector appeal is not legal or not proper, and then follow it up by authorising a Central Excise Officer to appeal against that order. The law allows the authorisation in respect of an order and presumes that the Collector, after reading the order of the Collector Appeals, is dissatisfied by it because it is not legal or proper. The law cannot assume that the Collector finds all orders of the Collector Appeals illegal or improper and, therefore, he needs to give a carte-blanche to somebody to file appeals on his behalf.
4. This purported order of the Collector authorises appeals not only to the Tribunal but also to the Collector Appeals. It is clear, therefore, that the order was given neither in the spirit of Section 35B nor in accordance with its letter. The authorisation is, therefore, invalid.
5. Furthermore, it was issued one year after the appeal filed in this Tribunal. Section 35B(2) requires first the authority of the Collector to file an appeal against an order, and then only the actual appeal by the officer authorised by him. Here we have the order reversed – the appeal is filed first and then followed one whole the year later by the so-called authorisation. This makes the appeal invalid, even if the authorisation had been valid, which it is not.
6. The list of events that held up the appeal reads like this was a case of a routine matter being handled in a routine way. First of all, the Assistant Collector was on leave, then the dealing assistant was on leave; the dealing assistant took leave a second time, then the typist was absent; after that the staff was absent due to certain celebrations. After this, the typist of the section again decided to absent himself. Next the xerox machine decided to play a part and went out of order; but not content with one part, the machine decided on a repeat a few days later. Between all these movements to and fro of people, machines, documents etc. there were said to be Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, restricted holidays and holidays due to various festivals. All this took a tremendous two months of office time. This is to say nothing of the normal 3 months (preceding these two months), the normal time allowed by the law for appeal. One notices that the list of events starts only after the expiry of the time limit; obviously the appellants did nothing during the three months they are allowed by law for filing the appeal, and seem to take for granted that they should start preparing their appeal only after the expiry of the time limit. The explanation and the delays that are said to have occurred do not convince us that this is a good case for condoning the delay. The case indeed calls for rejection of any condonation.
7. For all the above reasons, the appeal is rejected.