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2017 (1) TMI 480 - HC - Central ExciseProsecution proceedings against the central excise officers - allowing conditional exemption to the unit illegally - Issuance of forged document in favour of the Company though there was no commercial production by the Company - Criminal misconduct - compromise or compounding of offence - Held that: - under Section 13(1)(d), the basic requirement is to the effect that the accused himself should have obtained either for himself or for any other person either any valuable thing or pecuniary advantage either by corrupt or illegal means or by abusing his position and without any public interest. Therefore, when there is no allegation about any such fact, it can be said that there is no prima-facie evidence regarding criminal misconduct as alleged. Once main offence is compounded then there is catana of judgments by Supreme Court that when the department has compounded the offences then there is no reason to continue the criminal proceedings, more particularly when offences are either in the form of breach of rules or technical offences In the present case, though some documents are alleged to be forged practically there is no forgery of any documents. It is submitted by the petitioners that, in fact an advance appreciation of work by the Company as per project report happens as per fixed schedule was disclosed. However for one reason or another if such time schedule could not be adhered to either during installation or during production it may not amount to committing offence of forgery, since there is no mens rea and practically there is no financial benefit accrued in favour of the petitioners. Revision application allowed - charge-sheet to proceed further against petitioners are hereby quashed and set aside - decided in favor of petitioner.
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