POPULAR DYE CHEM Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Few facts must be stated in order to appreciate the shocking manner in which one Mr. S.K. Malhi, Collector of Customs, Appeals, Bombay, has acted in passing the order dated 31st December, 1986 against the petitioners in this petition.

(2.) The petitioners had filed Writ Petition No. 2656 of 1986 for the clearance of certain goods described by them as plastic scrap material. The Assistant Collector of Customs had already passed an order clearing the goods, but the authorities intercepted the goods by contending that what was being cleared was not scrap material but re-usable plastic material. Against this action of the authorities the petitioners filed the aforesaid Writ Petition No. 2656 of 1986.

(3.) On 22nd of October 1986, after hearing the Advocates for the petitioners and the respondents and after examining the samples which were produced before me for inspection, I issued a rule making it returnable in the 4th week of March, 1987. Interim relief was also granted in terms of prayer clause (c) of that petition on the condition that the petitioners will clear the goods by pulverising the same at their own cost as mentioned in paragraph 7 of the petitioners' letter dated 6th October 1986. The effect of that order was that the plastic goods which were in the nature of scrap, according to the petitioners, had to be reduced to a condition which would make them unfit for re-use. In other words, it was to be reduced to scrap.