CESTAT Must Issue Fresh Notice If Bench Does Not Sit On Fixed Hearing Date: Allahabad High Court

It held that an appeal decided ex parte on such an unnotified date is decided without affording the appellant due opportunity of hearing.

Rule 18(1) of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (Procedure) Rules, 1982 requires the Tribunal to notify the parties of the date and place of hearing of the appeal or application. Rule 24 permits the Tribunal, on such terms as it thinks fit, to adjourn the hearing at any stage of the proceedings.

Public Notice No.3 of 2019 dated 18.02.2019 dispensed with the practice of issuing adjournment notices, on the footing that daily orders are uploaded on the Tribunal's website, from which parties may take notice of adjourned dates and attend without further intimation.

The bench of Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Swarupama Chaturvedi held

“To that extent, the hearing procedure was disrupted occasioned by non-availability of the two-Member bench of the Tribunal. Therefore, it was obligated to issue a fresh notice to the appellant in terms of Rule 18 of the Rules, intimating the next date and place of hearing. That was not done.”

The appellant's excise appeal of 2018 was listed before the Tribunal on sixteen dates between 10.07.2019 and 15.07.2025. On 12.03.2025, a Special Bench granted a last opportunity and fixed 06.05.2025, recording that the appeal would be decided on merits on the next date even in the absence of the appellant. No two-member bench could be constituted on 06.05.2025, Order No.46 of 2025 dated 25.02.2025 of the Deputy Registrar having provided for single-member benches alone for the period 03.03.2025 to 30.05.2025. The appeal was next taken up on 15.07.2025 and dismissed ex parte, by order dated 13.11.2025.

In appeal under Section 35-G of the Central Excise Act, 1944 read with Section 174 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, the question pressed was whether, no bench having sat on 06.05.2025, the appeal could be decided on 15.07.2025, a date for which no notice had been issued.

Counsel for the appellant stated that it had participated in the proceedings till 12.03.2025, though adjournments may have been sought on certain dates. According to the Tribunal, the appellant appeared on none of the sixteen dates.

Counsel for the revenue submitted that the appellant could in any event have found out the status of the proceedings from the daily cause list, uploaded every Thursday.

The Court observed that the Public Notice dispenses with fresh notice only because orders fixing dates are uploaded; where no bench sat and no order was passed, nothing was uploaded disclosing to the appellant, in advance, the next date fixed in the appeal.

“it also cannot be denied that there was no notice issued by the Tribunal of the next date fixed in the proceedings and there is no enabling Rule or practice that may commend such extreme diligence on part of the appellant.”

The Court held that the failure of the two-member bench to sit could not be described as an adjournment under Rule 24, and the obligation under Rule 18 to notify the date and place of hearing therefore remained.

Answering the question of law in favour of the appellant, the Court set aside the order of the Tribunal dated 13.11.2025 and remitted the matter for a fresh order. It clarified that it had not considered the manner of service of notice under Rule 18, as it was not the case of the revenue that notice had been served notice by any mode.

For Appellant: Advocate Atul Gupta

For Respondent: Advocates Amit Mahajan, Dhananjay Awasthi