ORDER
S.D. Jha, Member (J)
1. We have heard Shri H.P. Arora, Advocate for the appellants and Shri Shishir Kumar, SDR for the respondent and have perused the available papers and relevant provisions. Collector of Central Excise (Appeals), New Delhi by his order dated 28-9-1983 rejected and dismissed the appeal of the appellants filed before him by observing that the appellants have filed the petition with reference to a series of correspondence exchanged with the local authorities. No appeal lies against such ordinary communication in the normal course of activities which are purely informatory in character or clarificatory nature. He further observed that apart from the foregoing the petition has been submitted after normal period of limitation as admitted by the learned counsel for the Petitioners vide letter dated 19-4-1983. He also did not accept the request for condonation of delay made by the appellants observing that in any case the appeal petition had been filed before the recent amendment of law vesting power of condonation of delay in the Appellate Authority. He held that the benefit thereof could not be claimed by the appellants.
2. It appears that the Superintendent of Central Excise without serving any show cause notice on the appellants raised demand by letter dated 11-1-1979. The appellants protested against this letter raising several pleas and the Superintendent of Central Excise sent another communication to the appellants dated 1/3-3-1979. Collector of Central Excise (Appeals) computed the limitation from the earlier communication dated 11-1-1979 and not from the communication dated 1/3-3-1979.
3. It is letter dated 1/3-3-1979 which has dealt with the various pleas of the appellants and therefore, on the facts and circumstances of the case it would be proper to treat this communication as an appealable order a concept well understood in revenue and computing limitation from this date the present appeal presented on 26-5-1979 would be within limitation. We hold that the Collector should not have rejected the appeal on the ground of limitation.
4. There is no dispute that no show cause notice as required under law preceding the demand notice was served on the appellants. In the absence of this show cause notice demands of duty vide letter dated 22-12-1978 for Rs. 7,419.47 and by letter dated 11-1-1979 for Rs. 2,022.77 totalling Rs. 9,442.24 cannot be sustained and would have to be set aside. We do the same.
5. It is now more than 5 years since the demands were raised against the appellants. No useful purpose would be served by remanding the matter to the lower authority.
6. The apeal is disposed of in the foregoing terms.