ASST COLLECTOR Vs. PAVUNNI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Two hundred gold biscuits were disinterred from the residential compound of the respondent when a team of customs officers conducted raid on 6-12-1980. The biscuits had marks to indicate that they were of foreign origin. The total value of them exceeded rupees forty lakhs, as per the price prevailed then. The respondent was prosecuted for the offences under S.135(1) of the Customs Act, 1962 (for short 'the Customs Act') and S.85(1)(a) and 86 of the Gold Control Act, 1968. The Trial Court acquitted him mainly on the ground that the prosecution did not prove that the contraband gold articles were in the conscious possession of the respondent. This appeal is by the Assistant Collector of Central Excise, who filed the complaint in the lower court.

(2.) The respondent (the accused in this case) is the Managing Partner of a firm dealing in stationary articles. His residence is on St. Vincents' Cross Road, Ernakulam. The officers of the Central Excise and the Customs Department got secret information that smuggled gold articles were bidden in the residential compound of the accused. Pw. 2, Superintendent of Customs (Preventive and Intelligence Unit), Cochin, accompanied by a team of officers of the Customs Department conducted a search of the house and premises of the accused on 6-12-1980. A box made of teak-wood was disinterred from the courtyard. The box contained two hundred gold biscuits wrapped up in two bundles. Those articles were assayed by a gold-smith. Samples of them were got examined in the Mint. The result of such examinations revealed that the gold in question had twenty four caret purity. Ext. P3 mahazar was drawn up by Pw. 2 for seizure of the gold biscuits along with the wooden box and the wrapper. Ext. P4 is the statement given by the accused (under bis handwriting and signature), as per S.108 of the Customs Act.

(3.) The accused did not dispute the fact that the gold biscuits were unearthed from his courtyard and that all such gold biscuits are smuggled goods within the purview of the Customs Act, and that they are "primary gold'' within the meaning of the Gold Control Act. Nor has he disputed the prosecution case that the courtyard from which they were unearthed was in his possession. According to him, he never knew that such a wooden box with gold in it had ever been interred in bis compound. He suggested that they would have been buried in his compound by Pw. 3 who had deep involvement in smuggling activities and who had free access to this property. Accused strongly repudiated the statements attributed to him in Ext. P4 statement. He contended that he was compelled to write down those statements under threat and coercion. According to him, the statement contained in Ext. P4 does not represent true facts,