The court is hearing appeals filed by Puneet Sabharwal and RC Sabharwal. (representative)

New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said even strong suspicion based on material on record raising a presumption about the role of an accused in a crime can justify filing charges in a criminal case.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and KV Viswanathan refused to quash the charges in the disproportionate assets case, saying the Supreme Court should not conduct a “dress rehearsal of the trial”, in preliminary stage, only the charges were framed by the lower court taking a preliminary view.

“We will not be rehearsing the trial at this stage. The test applicable to discharge has been well settled by a series of judgments passed by this court.

Justice Viswanathan, in his 46-page judgment written for the bench, said, “Even strong suspicion based on the material on record that the existence of elements of criminality can be inferred can justify charging the accused. “

The court is hearing appeals filed by Puneet Sabharwal and RC Sabharwal against the Delhi High Court judgment.

The High Court refused to quash the 2006 trial court order seeking corruption charges against them.

While refusing to grant the plea, the Supreme Court directed the trial court to expedite hearing of cases dating back 25 years.

The trial begins and the evidence of the criminal case is recorded after the court conducts a preliminary examination of the material recorded by the investigating agency and frames the charges against the accused.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)