The Delhi High Court has ruled that each appeal arising from a common adjudication order must independently satisfy the CBIC monetary limit, and cumulative demand cannot be considered. The Court noted that the CBIC Instructions dated Nov 02, 2023, prescribe a monetary limit of Rs. 1 crore for filing appeals before High Courts, subject to limited exceptions. Accordingly, the Court dismissed the customs appeals filed by the Commissioner of Customs (Import and General) as not maintainable on account of the monetary-limit policy governing departmental litigation.
The Customs Department argued that since the original adjudication order was a composite Order-in-Original covering multiple noticees, the total demand arising from the entire order should be taken into account. The Court rejected this contention, relying on CBEC instructions that clarify that every appeal arising from a common order must be treated as a separate case for determining the monetary threshold.
Briefly, the appeals were filed by the Commissioner of Customs (Import and General) challenging a common order dated Oct 06, 2025, passed by the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal (CESTAT), New Delhi. Since both appeals involved a similar issue, the Delhi High Court decided them through a common order.
The respondents raised a preliminary objection to the maintainability of the appeals. According to them, in view of the CBIC Instructions dated Nov 02, 2023 prescribing monetary limits for departmental appeals, the Customs Department could not maintain the appeals before the High Court.
The Department argued that the original adjudication order dated April 13, 2007 was a composite Order-in-Original covering several noticees. Therefore, the cumulative monetary impact of the entire order should be considered while determining whether the appeal crossed the prescribed monetary threshold, and not the amount involved in each individual appeal.
The Division Bench comprising Justice Avneesh Jhingan and Justice Shail Jain noted that the issue raised by the Department had already been addressed by the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) through Instructions dated Dec 26, 2014. Those instructions specifically clarified how monetary limits are to be applied where a common adjudication order covers multiple parties.
The Court observed that the Dec 26, 2014, Instructions clearly state that in cases involving a composite order, each appeal is to be treated as a separate case for the purpose of applying the monetary threshold. Therefore, the Department cannot combine or ‘club’ the monetary effect relating to different parties to cross the prescribed limit.
The Court further referred to the later CBIC Instruction dated Nov 02, 2023, which fixed the monetary limit for filing appeals before High Courts at Rs. 1 crore. The Instruction retained only three exceptions where appeals could be filed irrespective of monetary limits: (i) cases involving challenge to the validity of a statutory provision, (ii) cases where a notification, instruction, order or circular has been held illegal or ultra vires, and (iii) classification or refund disputes involving legal or recurring issues.
