The main legal point established in the judgment is that the prosecution successfully established a prima facie case of criminal conspiracy to evade Central Excise duty and claim false reimbursement, leading to the dismissal of the petitioners' revision petition.

This Criminal revision is directed against the order passed by the learned Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Egmore, Chennai made in Crl.MP.No.11 of 2011 in CC. No. 4471 of 2010 dated 16.09.2011.

2. The case of the prosecution is that based on the reliable source information a case in RC 09(S)/2009 was registered in Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Special Crime Branch, Chennai on 16.11.2009 for the offences under Sections 120B r/w.420, 467, 468, 471 IPC; Section 9(1) (b) & 9AA of Central Excise Act, 1944 and Section 13(2) r/w.13(1)(d) of PC Act 1988 against the petitioners/Accused. M/s. J.R. Smelters Pvt. Ltd., (A1) and others alleging that the petitioners/accused 1 and 5 companies and others in connivance with unknown public servants of Central Excise and Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (herein after referred to as 'TNEB') had cheated and caused wrongful loss to the Government of India to the tune of Rs.83.99 lakhs by evading the Central Excise duty on the strength of false invoice/bills while supplying materials to the TNEB and used forged document to commit the offence.

3. The petitioners/accused companies M/s. J.R. Smelters Pvt. Ltd (A1) and M/s. Indo Steel Re-rollers (A5) represented by M. Ramahchandra Singh (A2)/Managing Director of A1 company and partner of A5 company. R. Naryan Singh (A3) and R. Pramod Singh (A4) Directors of A1 company obtained supply orders from TNEB during the period from 2005 to 2008 for supplying various Iron and Steel materials i.e., M.S. Angels and M.S. Flats etc., as a manufacturer of the materials. As per the terms and conditions of the purchase order, the supplier should submit pre-authenticated invoices showing the details of address of the Central Excise Office, range, date and time of removal of foods, PLA/RG 23 entry number, Basic Central Excise Duty on the assessable value etc at the time of supply of materials to TNEB for claiming the reimbursement of Central Excise Duty remitted at the time of removal of goods. The petitioner companies are supposed to abide by the terms and conditions of the tender and purchase order placed on them.

4. A2 to A4 conspired together with each other and with another accused A6 to cheat Government of India by evading Central Excise duty and also by claiming fase reimbursement claim of Central Excise duty from TNEB without actually paying the duty. In addition to the said criminal conspiracy, the accused persons with malafide intention prepared two sets of invoices with same serial numbers while supplying materials to TNEB in order to evade Central Excise Duty. One set of invoices contained all the details pertaining to Central Excise Duty such as break-up of Central Excise duty, education cess etc and the other set of invoices was prepared without details of central excise duty related columns. The petitioners intimated the serial number of the first set of invoices having particulars of Central Excise Duty (Excise invoices) to the Central Excise Department and used these invoices for those supplies for which Central Excise Duty were credited. In the other set of invoices (commercial invoices) the amount of Central Excise Duty without paying the Central Excise Duty to Central Excise Department and by claiming the reimbursement from TNEB with the help of these commercial invoices was neither credited in the CENVAT accounts nor remitted to the Central Excise Department Account.

5. In the investigation it is revealed that the accused A2 to A4 prepared forged Chartered Accountant Certificates using the letter head of two Chartered Accountants viz., Omprakash & Co and B. Kandaswamy Aravind through another accused A. Sardhar (A6) and with the help of their employees viz., Vijay Shanker, Subash Sharma and one A. Mani. The A3, A4 and A6 prepared the rubber stamps of the above mentioned Chartered Accountants through Vijay Shanker and Subash Sharma from a printing press in Ernavoor and used these rubber stamps in the certificates forged by them. The pe