MRIGNAINI KANWAR Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) RATNAVEL Pandian, J.: The petitioner Mrs. Mrignaini Kanwar has moved this Court under Art.226 of the Constitution of India for the issuance of a Writ of Habeas Corpus setting at liberty her husband Ashok Kumar, the detenu herein, who has been detained in the Central Prison, Madras, in pursuance of an order of detention under Section 3(1), Cls.(ii), (iii) & (iv), of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (hereinafter referred to as the COFEPOSA Act) passed by the first respondent herein on 7-9-1983.

(2.) THE grounds on which the impugned order has been made are as follows: THE Customs Intelligence Officers at Madras Airport, on information, intercepted on 20-8-1983 three Nigerian nationals, viz., one Mr. Anthoni Umunnokwe Ikechi, one Mrs. Mary Williams Udondem and one Mr. Azubike Augustine Nwangwa (two males and one female). THEse three persons arrived from Singapore by the Air India Flight on that night. THEy paid for their packages on oral declarations without payment of duty, opting to go through the Green Channel of the Customs Enclosures, and had gone out of the Customs Hall, where Mr. Nwangwa was received by the detenu who was waiting with a white-coloured Ambassador car bearing Regn No. TMR. 4860. Mr. Nwangwa kept his two suit cases in the dicky of the abovesaid car. THE other two passengers were about to load their cleared packages into the car. At this stage, the Customs Officers intercepted the three passengers, the detenu and the driver of the car along with the cleared packages for detailed examination in the presence of witnesses on the basis of some information to the effect that they were carrying wrist watches in large quantities. THE detenu gave his name as Ashok Kumar. THE examination of the package of Anthoni U. Ikechi resulted in the recovery of 1630 Nos. of Royal LCD Quartz wrist watches made in Hong-Kong, 3750 Nos. of watch batteries and some documents. THEse contrabands were found concealed inside the false bottom sides of the suitcases. THE watch batteries in 25 packets were recovered on a search of the person of Mr. Anthoni U. Ikechi. All the goods were valued at Rs.56,400/- C.I.F. and Rs. 1,41,000/- market value. THE package of Mrs. Mary Williams, who is the wife of A.U. Ikechi, was found to be unusually heavy, fitted with false bottoms, which, when removed, was found to contain 910 Royal LCD Quartz wrist watches made in Hong Kong. THE search of the hand-bag belonging to Mary Williams resulted in the recovery of 50 packages of brown adhesive tape, each packet containing 150 Nos. of button cells (watch batteries) totalling 7,500 numbers. THEse goods were valued at Rs. 42,300/- C.I.F., and Rs. 1,05,750/- market value. THE package of Augustine Nwangwa consisted of two suit-cases. On examination of the one white in colour, it was found that 910 Nos. of wrist watches were kept concealed under a false bottom of the suit cases and all the watches were Rotal LCD Quartz wrist watches. THE other gray-coloured suit-case was opened and there were 715 Nos. of the same brand wrist watches kept under a false bottom, all made in Hong Kong. Another set of 745 wrist watches of the same brand were also found kept, all totalling 2,370 watches, all made in Hong Kong. On a personal search, 35 brown paper pads were found kept inside the socks worn by him. When examined, they were found to contain button cells watch batteries (150 Nos. in each pad, totalling 5,250). Besides, some documents were also recovered from this person. THE aforesaid two suit-cases belonging to this passenger Augustine Nwangwa had been kept in the dicky of the Ambassador car as stated above. THE goods recovered from this person were valued at Rs. 81,600/- C.I.F., and Rs. 2,04,000/- market value, and the Ambasssador car at Rs. 40,000/-. All these goods recovered from these three passengers as well as the Ambassador car were seized under three separate mahazars. THE total C.I.F., value of the goods seized from the three persons is Rs.1,80,300/-and the market value of the same is Rs. 4,50,750/-.

(3.) THE department has denied the allegation that they were beaten. THE Court did not find any visible injury on any one of them. Besides, all the four stated before the Court that the statements obtained by the department were not voluntary. THEn, all of them were remanded to juidicial custody till 3-9-1983.