The Delhi High Court has held that the Customs Department cannot aggregate demands arising from a composite adjudication order to meet the monetary threshold for filing appeals. Each appeal must independently satisfy the applicable limit, even where the original proceedings involved several noticees and were decided through a common order.

The Bench of Justice Avneesh Jhingan and Justice Shail Jain dismissed two departmental appeals as not maintainable, rejecting the argument that the cumulative monetary effect of the Order-in-Original should determine whether the appeals could proceed.

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The Commissioner of Customs (Import and General) approached the High Court under Section 130 of the Customs Act, 1962, challenging a CESTAT, New Delhi order dated October 6, 2025.

Since both appeals raised a similar issue, the High Court considered them together. Counsel for the respondents raised a preliminary objection to their maintainability, relying on the Board’s instructions dated November 2, 2023, governing monetary limits for departmental appeals.

Under those instructions, the monetary limit for departmental appeals before the High Courts was fixed at ₹1 crore, subject to specified exceptions.

The Customs Department argued that the Order-in-Original dated April 13, 2007, was a composite order covering all the noticees.

According to the Department, the cumulative monetary effect of that order should therefore be considered instead of the amount involved in each individual appeal.

The central question was whether demands covered by a common adjudication order could be combined to satisfy the monetary threshold for separate departmental appeals.

The High Court found that the Central Board of Excise and Customs had already addressed the issue through instructions dated December 26, 2014.

Those instructions clarified how the monetary limit applies when an adjudicating or appellate authority decides cases involving more than one party through a common order.

Where the Department proposes to file separate appeals against a composite order, each appeal constitutes a separate case and must independently satisfy the prescribed monetary limit.

The clarification also covered situations where the Tribunal passes a single order disposing of several appeals. If the Department seeks to challenge that decision through multiple appeals, the monetary threshold applies separately to each one.

The Court consequently rejected the Department’s attempt to rely on the combined demand under the original adjudication order.

The Bench also examined the development of the instructions governing departmental litigation.

It noted that the instructions dated December 17, 2015, enhanced the earlier monetary limits and added an exception concerning classification and refund issues of a legal and/or recurring nature.

The subsequent instructions dated November 2, 2023, fixed the High Court appeal limit at ₹1 crore while retaining three exceptions.

As explained in the order, these exceptions concern challenges to the validity of provisions of an Act or Rule; cases where a notification, instruction, order or circular has been held illegal or ultra vires; and classification and refund issues of a legal and/or recurring nature.

The November 2023 instructions reproduced in the judgment prescribed monetary limits of ₹50 lakh for CESTAT, ₹1 crore for High Courts and ₹2 crore for the Supreme Court.

The High Court held that the December 2014 clarification left no scope for the Department to re-agitate the contention that the cumulative demand under a composite Order-in-Original should be considered instead of the amount involved in each appeal.

The ruling makes clear that a common adjudication order does not, by itself, permit aggregation of demands for applying the Department’s appeal-filing monetary limits.

The relevant unit for assessing the threshold remains each individual appeal.

The Bench dismissed both appeals as not maintainable while keeping the essential questions of law open.

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