1987 (5) TMI 139

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..... of 3 months from the date of receipt of the order-in-original. It is against the said judgment that the appellants had preferred the present appeal. 2.We have heard Shri J. Banerjee, Advocate for the appellants and Shri K.C. Sachar for the Department. 3. The order of the Appellate Collector does not disclose on what date the appeal had been received in his office. The appellants have filed before us the photocopy of the postal acknowledgement received by them for delivery of the envelope (containing the appeal) in the office of the Appellate Collector. It is seen therefrom that the envelope had been received in the said office on 16-3-1978. As earlier mentioned, the order-in-original had been received by the appellants on 15-12-1977. .....

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..... n took note of the fact that the Tribunal permitted appeals to be sent by post. It was for the reason that the date of delivery of the envelope to the post office as well as the date of receipt in the Registry were both excluded in deciding whether the appeal had been received in time. 6. But so far as the present case is concerned this relates to an appeal sent to the Appellate Collector at a time when there was no provision authorising the dispatch of such appeal by post. In the absence of such permission the normal Rule would be that the appeals should be presented in the office of the Appellate Collector and the fact that the same was sent by post would not entitle the appellant to contend that such dispatch by post would be proper de .....

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..... tor was correct in his conclusion that the appeal was barred by time. It may be noted that under the provisions of Section 35 of the Central Excises and Salt Act, as it then stood, the Collector had no power of condonation of the delay in presenting the appeal. 8. In the result the impugned order-in-appeal is upheld and this appeal is dismissed. EDITOR S COMMENTS In cases where a memorandum of appeal is sent by post, generally, the date of receipt of such memorandum of appeal in the office of the Appellate Authority is to be taken as the date of filing of appeal, because under the general law the postal authorities cannot be considered as an agent of the addressee unless there is" an agreement of a representation constituting the post .....

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