Suspicion not enough to prosecute — SC

The ruling was handed down by a division bench comprising Justice S Saghir Ahmad and Justice D P Wadhwa while quashing a charge-sheet against a very senior officer of the Central Excise Department and thereby allowing his appeal with costs against a judgment of the Bombay High Court.

The appellant, Zunjarrao Bhikaji Nagarkar, was posted as Collector of Central Excise, Nagpur in 1995. The Collector is now called Commissioner after an amendment of the Central Excise Act, 1944. At present, the appellant is posted as director of the National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics, Mumbai.

He was served with a memorandum dated September 2, 1997 underRule 14 of the Central Civil Services (classification, control and appeal) Rules, 1965 informing him that the President proposed to hold an inquiry against him on the allegation that he favoured Messrs Hari Vishnu Packaging Ltd, Nagpur (an assessee). The memorandum further stated that by not imposing penalty on it under Rule 173 Q of the Central Excise rules despite his order dated March 2, 1995 stating that the assessee had clandestinely manufactured and cleared the excisable goods willfully and evaded excise duty, he was favouring it. Besides, he had also ordered confiscation of the goods.

The appellant approached the Central Administrative Tribunal, challenging the proposed inquiry by filing an application. The application was, however, dismissed.

Immediately thereafter, the appellant filed a writ petition in the High Court challenging the proposed inquiry. The petition was dismissed on September 7, 1998. Hence, the appeal before the Apex Court.

Admittedly by order in question, which was the basisfor the proposed inquiry, the goods of the assessee stood confiscated and the duty demand amounting to Rs 3,57,000 stood confirmed.

It was contended on behalf of the appellant that the memo of charge read with the imputation of misconduct only alleged that the appellant was in error by not imposing a penalty but there was no allegation of any corrupt motive or any familiarity with the party. This fact was further buttressed by the fact that the department did not want to produce any witness and the list of documents pertaining to the records of this case, it was further submitted.

It was also contended that the allegations made in the charge-sheet did not show any culpability on the part of the appellant nor did they amount to misconduct. That being so, the present charge-sheet was liable to be quashed. The Supreme Court in its judgment said when penalty was not levied, the assessee certainly benefitted. But it could not be said that by not levying the penalty, the officer had favoured the assessee orshown undue favour to it. "There has to be some basis for the disciplinary authority to reach such a conclusion even prima facie. It must kept in mind that being a quasi-judicial authority, the appellant is always subject to judicial supervision in appeal," the court added.

Hearsay is no basis for conviction

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has ruled that in the absence of any corroboration, hearsay evidence of a witness, who is inimical to the accused, cannot form the basis of conviction. While hearing an appeal in an attempt to murder case recently, a three-judge bench headed by JusticeG B Pattanaik said, "the witness being inimical to the accused and on account of what has been elicited in his cross examination, his evidence requires corroboration before being accepted."