Manufacture under excise law covers processed grey fabric; discharge based on the earlier contrary view could not stand.

A discharge based on the view that bleaching, dyeing, sizing, printing and finishing of grey fabric did not amount to manufacture could not survive after the Supreme Court held that such processes produce a commercially different commodity and fall within manufacture under the excise law. Once that binding interpretation applied, the legal foundation of the discharge order disappeared. The discharge was therefore unsustainable and had to be set aside, with the matter restored for further proceedings in accordance with law.

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Issues: Whether the discharge of the accused could stand after the Supreme Court held that grey fabric subjected to bleaching, dyeing, sizing, printing and finishing amounts to manufacture and that the amended excise law validly applied.

Analysis: The accused had been discharged on the footing that, prior to the amending legislation, the processes applied to grey fabric did not amount to manufacture and, therefore, no offence under the excise law was made out. The subsequent Supreme Court ruling rejected that view and held that grey fabric, after undergoing the specified processes, emerges as a commercially different commodity and falls within manufacture for the purposes of the charging provision. In light of that binding ruling, the basis of the discharge order ceased to survive.

Conclusion: The discharge order could not be sustained and required to be set aside.

Final Conclusion: The revision succeeded to the extent that the matter was restored to the trial court for further proceedings in accordance with law.

Ratio Decidendi: When the legal foundation of a discharge is displaced by a binding higher-court ruling on the substantive excise question, the discharge cannot stand and the matter must be reconsidered on the corrected legal position.

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