Sufficiency of evidence versus question of law: factual findings on alleged dealer-registration breach could not be reopened in reference jurisdiction.

Circumstantial evidence that only created suspicion, without proving a dealer-registration violation, was treated as insufficient to sustain the penalty under the Central Excise Rules. The Tribunal accepted the assessee's explanations and treated the matter as one of factual appreciation of evidence. As the sufficiency of evidence does not itself raise a question of law, the correctness of that factual finding could not be reopened in reference jurisdiction. The reference applications were therefore rejected and the order deleting penalty remained undisturbed.

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Issues: Whether the alleged contravention of the dealer-registration rules and the imposition of penalty under the Central Excise Rules raised any question of law, or whether the matter turned only on appreciation of evidence and factual findings.

Analysis: The Tribunal's finding was that the circumstantial materials relied upon by the Revenue created suspicion but did not establish the alleged violation, and that the assessee's explanations displaced the adverse inference. The order under reference treated this as a factual conclusion reached on appraisal of the evidence. Since the settled principle is that sufficiency of evidence does not itself give rise to a question of law, the correctness of the factual appreciation could not be reopened in reference jurisdiction.

Conclusion: No question of law arose; the reference applications were rejected, and the finding deleting penalty was left undisturbed.

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