Achhar Singh vs Dy. Collector of Customs and Central Excise and Others

A.S. Bains, J.—The petitioner is proprietor of a transport company known as the New Bar Transport Company and owns truck No. PNA-4669. The said transport company carries on the business of transporting goods to and from Amritsar to other places in the country and has its office at Amritsar.

M/s Balbir Singh & Sons, Karyana Merchants of Dal Mandi, Amritsar, got booked on 3-12-1969 in the office of the Transport Company of the petitioner 13 begs of cardamom weighing 500 kgs which had been purchased from them by M/s Balwant Singh & Company, Karyana Dealers of Jhabal, District Amritsar, under the sellers'' regular Bill No. 131, dated 3-12-1969. Goods receipt was issued before transporting the goods.

The truck left Amritsar for Jhabal at about 9 p.m. on 3-12-1969 with Shri Harbans Singh as its driver. While it was on the Amritsar-Jhabal Road near Baba Budha Bus Stand, the Customs authorities signalled the driver to stop it, but the driver and other occupants of the truck abandoned the same and tried to escape under the cover of darkness and, while escaping they opened fire at the party of the preventive staff. The truck along with its goods was seized by the Customs authorities. The petitioner was served with a show-cause notice dated 17-1-1979 (Annexure P-2) by the Superintendent (Technical) Customs, Amritsar. He replied to the show-cause notice, but the Deputy Collector, vide his order dated 20-4-1970 (Annexure P-4) confiscated the truck along with its goods and gave the owner of the truck an option to redeem the truck on payment of Rs. 7000/- as fine. Appeal before the Appellate Collector of Customs was dismissed, vide his order dated 26-5-1972 (Annexure P-6) and the revision before the Central Government was also dismissed, vide its order dated 30-3-1974 (Annexure P-8). It is against the order of confiscation passed by the Deputy Collector, confirmed by the Appellate and the Revisional authorities, that the present writ-petition has been filed by the owner of the truck.

Learned counsel for the petitioner says that the notice dated 17-1-1970 (Annexure P-2) was defective. The notice, in my view, is not defective as'' it gives the details of the whole incident. Full facts have been mentioned therein. Even if some wrong section or notification is quoted, it would not make the notice defective. The Deputy Collector, the Appellate authorities and the Revisional authorities have given cogent reasons and the circumstances under which the truck was stopped. When the truck was stopped, the occupants of the truck opened fire and then they escaped under the cover of darkness. If the truck was being driven in the normal course of business, there was no need to open fire by the occupants of the truck on the Naka party. They would have stopped the truck and explained the Naka party that the goods therein were being taken to Jhabal. Moreover, Jhabal is a town near the border, where so much quantity of the seized goods was not required. Accordingly, 1 am of the view that no case is made out for invoking the extra ordinary and equitable jurisdiction in the circumstances of the present case. However, the subsequent orders for not allowing the petitioner to redeem the truck for Rs. 7000/-, are unjustified. The learned counsel for the respondents could not show me any law under which enhanced amount of Rs. 19,318/- could be claimed by the respondents for the redemption of the truck. The truck was also considerably damaged in the possession of the Customs authorities and the Motion Bench had observed that, if so advised, the petitioner could claim compensation for the damage caused by the negligence of the Customs authorities. Accordingly, the subsequent orders not allowing the petitioner to redeem the truck on payment of Rs. 7000/-, are quashed.

In the result, this petition is partly allowed as indicated above. There will be no order as to costs.