MANINDER SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition has been filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India read with Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure seeking quashment of the order dated January 24, 1990 passed under Section 3(1) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act 1974(For short, the Act) with a view to preventing the petitioner from smuggling goods.

(2.) The facts of the case, in brief, are that on June 18, 1989 the petitioner had arrived from Singapore via Bangkok at Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi and in presence of two independent witnesses his personal search was carried out and three egg shaped objects were recovertd from his trousers pocket and they were broken and 7 pieces of gold were recovered on weighing of which the gold came to be 375 Grams. of the value of Rs. 1,15,500.00 .

(3.) Petitioner in his voluntary statement under Section 108 of the Customs Act admitted the recovery of the said gold and stated that he had gone to Singapore where he had met Shyam Lal who asked him to carry the said gold to be taken from him by one Jagroop Kumar who was to pay Rs. 2.000.00 to the petitioner for doing this job. He has mentioned that he had chosen to disembark at Bombay as the Delhi customs were very strict as compared to that of Bombay. His passport was seized and it was found that he had visited foreign countries like Dubai, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore 20 times for short durations between the period March 10, 1988 to June 18, 1989. The detaining authority from the above facts came to the conclusion that petitioner has a propensity in the matter of smuggling goods and unless he was prevented, he was likely to indulge in these prejudicial activities in future as well and thus the aforesaid detention order was made.