Criminal prosecution may continue despite pending excise adjudication where no exoneration on merits exists and a prima facie case is shown.

Adjudication under the Central Excise Act does not bar criminal prosecution unless the assessee is exonerated on merits in a way that renders the allegations unsustainable. Here, the adjudication proceedings had not ended in favour of the accused; they were remitted for fresh determination and later resulted in liability being fixed. At the stage of cognizance and summoning, the court considers only whether a prima facie case exists, not whether the evidence is sufficient for conviction. The materials on record were enough to support prosecution, so the magistrate's refusal to discharge disclosed no illegality or infirmity.

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Issues: Whether the criminal complaint under the Central Excise Act could be quashed or the discharge application allowed on the ground that the adjudication proceedings had not culminated in the revisionists' exoneration and that the criminal case lacked a prima facie basis.

Analysis: The adjudication proceedings had not ended in favour of the revisionists. They had only been remitted for fresh determination of individual liability after hearing, and the subsequent order also fixed liability in the same proceedings. The legal position is that adjudication and criminal prosecution are independent and may proceed simultaneously, and criminal prosecution is barred only where there is exoneration on merits in adjudication proceedings showing that the allegations are unsustainable. At the stage of cognizance and summoning, the court is concerned only with whether a prima facie case exists and is not required to assess the sufficiency of evidence for conviction. The materials on record, including the later adjudicatory order, were sufficient to show a prima facie case, and no illegality or infirmity was shown in the magistrate's refusal to discharge.

Conclusion: The challenge to the continuation of the complaint failed, and the discharge application was rightly rejected.

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