AMIT BHATIA Vs. COMMISSIONER OF CUS., ICD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The challenge in this writ petition is to a communication dated 17th March 2008 from the Office of the Commissioner of Customs, ICD, Tughlakabad addressed to the Petitioner concerning provisional release of the goods seized from the Petitioner on 24th October 2007. These goods which were heavy duty AA pencil batteries were imported by the Petitioner by a bill of entry dated 24th October 2007. Provisional release of the seized goods was ordered pending completion of investigations subject to fulfillment of the following conditions:

(2.) The grievance of the Petitioner in the writ petition was that the above conditions were harsh. The prayer, therefore, was that the goods be released unconditionally after payment of the appropriate provisional customs duty of Rs. 3,84,723/-. Alternatively it was prayed that the Petitioner should be permitted to make a payment of 20% of the provisional customs duty in terms of Rule 2 of the Customs Provisional Act, 1963.

(3.) This Court directed issuance of notice in the petition on 24th May 2008. However, a reply was filed to the petition by the Respondents only in February 2009. During the pendency of the petition, the Petitioner filed an application being CM. No. 14190/2009 stating therein that by an application made under the Right to Information Act, 2005 ('RTI Act') the Petitioner learnt that the seized goods had been sold on 7th August 2008 for an absurdly low cost for which 'no intimation whatsoever/notice of any kind has been sent to the Petitioner'. The attention of this Court was drawn to the counter affidavit filed by the Respondent in February 2009 where no mention was made about the sale of the seized goods. In the circumstances, the prayer in the said application was for a direction to the Respondents to place before this Court all the papers with regard to the said 'sale of goods of the Petitioner and as to how the said sale was affected without any notice to the Petitioner'.