Fresh evidence can justify remand when it affects the basis of penalty and requires reconsideration of shortage findings.

Fresh evidence bearing on the correctness of a quantity shortage used to impose penalty may be admitted in the interests of justice even without a prior formal request for additional evidence. Where that material directly affects the basis of the penalty, the adjudicating authority must examine it before the penalty can be sustained or recomputed. The lower orders were therefore set aside and the matter was remanded for verification of the revised outturn and survey reports and for redetermination of penalty in accordance with law.

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Issues: Whether fresh evidence not produced before the lower authorities could be admitted and taken into account for re-determining the penalty, and whether the matter should be remanded for reconsideration.

Analysis: The appeal was accompanied by revised outturn and survey reports which were treated as fresh evidence. Although no prior application or formal request for additional evidence had been made under the Tribunal Procedure Rules, the Tribunal admitted the material to meet the ends of justice. Since the new evidence bore directly on the correctness of the quantity shortage forming the basis of the penalty, it required examination by the adjudicating authority before the penalty could be sustained or recomputed.

Conclusion: The fresh evidence was admitted, the orders of the lower authorities were set aside, and the matter was remanded to the Deputy Collector for verification of the evidence and recomputation of the penalty in accordance with law.

Final Conclusion: The appellant obtained a remand for reconsideration on the basis of additional evidence, with the penalty issue left to be redetermined by the original authority.

Ratio Decidendi: Additional evidence affecting the basis of a penalty may be admitted in the interests of justice and the matter remanded for reconsideration where the correctness of the original quantification requires fresh examination.

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