At the discharge stage, a strong suspicion based on material capable of being translated into evidence is sufficient, and the court should not conduct a detailed evaluation aimed at conviction. However, prosecution witnesses lacked personal knowledge, merely proved departmental materials, or did not specify the alleged method of excise-duty evasion; the underlying records were not produced, making record-derived evidence inadmissible. Departmental adjudication orders and penalties alone cannot establish criminal liability, as the criminal court must independently assess whether duty evasion occurred and constituted an offence. On the available material, no prima facie case was disclosed, so discharge was upheld and the revision dismissed.
At the discharge stage, a strong suspicion based on material capable of being translated into evidence is sufficient, and the court should not conduct a detailed evaluation aimed at conviction. However, prosecution witnesses lacked personal knowledge, merely proved departmental materials, or did not specify the alleged method of excise-duty evasion; the underlying records were not produced, making record-derived evidence inadmissible. Departmental adjudication orders and penalties alone cannot establish criminal liability, as the criminal court must independently assess whether duty evasion occurred and constituted an offence. On the available material, no prima facie case was disclosed, so discharge was upheld and the revision dismissed.
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