Bombay High Court
Miss R. Shakuntala vs Roshanlal Agarwal And Others on 19 April, 1984
Author: Sharad Manohar
Bench: Sharad Manohar
ORDER
1. This judgment is being delivered by me only because certain jurisdictional objections were raised by Mr. Jethmalani to entertain this petition.
2. The main question in respect of which relief was asked for by the petitioner, Assistant Collector of Customs, is already resolved to the satisfaction of all the parties. But at the time when the petition was being argued, several objections were vehemently put forth questioning this Court's jurisdiction to entertain this petition and I found that each of the objections raised by Mr. Jethmalani had to be answered, on principle, as unsustainable. I had mentioned that I proposed to give a judgment on the point giving the reasons why I do not accept the contentions and on that account Counsel were heard fully and at length on those points. Moreover, these points are being raised before this Court quite frequently. That is the only reason why the present judgment is being delivered by me giving reasons why I entertained the petition and rejected the jurisdictional and other technical objections raised by Mr. Jethmalani and the other learned Counsel appearing for the defence.
3. A very short summary of the facts, which give rise to this revision application and to the jurisdictional caveat, may be given as follows :-
Respondents 1 and 2 are father and son whereas respondent 3 Chandrakumar Kedia is a close associate of the first two respondents. On 30th January 1984 certain quantity of polyester suiting material of foreign origin valued at Rs. 10 lacs was noticed by the Customs Authorities in the godown of the Orient Transport Co., Khetani Textiles Compound, Kurla, Bombay. The import of these goods was prohibited except under certain circumstances. The Department's case relating to the nature of the prohibition will be presently mentioned. The Customs Officers suspected that these goods had been imported in violation of the prohibition and hence investigation started. The goods were seized from the godown under panchanama on 8th February 1984 with a confident belief that they were liable for confiscation under the Customs Act. Various reasons existed for their confiscation. One was that the place of storage of the goods had not been intimated to the Customs Authorities and, further, no intimation in respect of the storage of the goods was given to the Customs Authorities, nor any register or accounts or other requisite documents in connection with the goods were properly maintained or made available as required by the provisions of Chapter IV-A of the Customs Act. The owner of the godown himself was not contactable. The owner of the goods also could not be reached. As a result of the general investigation, the Customs Authorities got strong reasons to believe that the seized goods formed a part of a total quantity of polyester suiting of foreign origin valued at a sum exceeding Rs. 2.5 crores, available in the local market, imported by the misuse of the actual user's licence. The actual users, when sought to be contacted, revealed, according to the Department, that they had not imported those articles at all. Thus the Department got clues in respect of a massive conspiracy, of which respondents 1 to 3 were the parties, to violate the provisions of the Customs Act by illegally importing goods under pretext of legality and siphoning them away into black market instead of despatching them to the licence holders for actual use as per the conditions of the import licence. The Department got clues to believe that respondent 1 was the real brain behind the conspiracy and that it was he who had master-minded the entire operation and had financed the imports for the firm which had the letters of authority from the licence holders, that is to say, the actual users. Respondents 2 and 3 actively associated with him for fulfilling the object of this conspiracy and various acts were committed by both of them with the help of others for the purpose of cheating the Customs Authorities and for the purpose of cheating the Government by importing goods which were virtually prohibited.
4. It is unnecessary to set out the various methods by which, according to the Department, the respondents manoeuvred their operations. The long and the short of the facts are that according to the Department, they had the reason to believe that the respondents had committed offences punishable under the Customs Act as also under S. 120B, I.P.C. to enter into a conspiracy with some other persons to commit those offences. Respondents 1 to 3 were arrested by the Department on 13th February 1984. After their arrest certain more goods were seized by the Department from Manish Market and, according to the Department, these goods were received by the shopkeeper in the Manish Market from none other than respondents 1 and 2 themselves.
On 14th February 1984 respondents 1 to 3 were produced by the Customs Officers before the learned Chief Metropolitan Magistrate and a remand of these respondents was sought, not to the police custody but to the judicial custody, till 28th February 1984. For various reasons, which need not be mentioned here, the Department was very keen that respondents 1 to 3 should be kept in the judicial custody at least for a short time; but the learned Chief Metropolitan Magistrate refused to accede to the request of the Department and he ordered that respondents 1 to 3 should be released on bail forthwith, in the sum of Rs. 5 lacs, Rs. 3 lacs and Rs. 2 lacs respectively for each of the respondents 1 to 3, with one surety in the case of each of them for the like amount. On behalf of the Department an application was made to the learned Magistrate to stay the order at least till 17th February 1984 but even this application was rejected.
5. It is against this order that the present revision application is made before me. I passed an order issuing Rule on the said application on 17th February, 1984 and the order granting bail passed by the lower Court was stayed, Respondents 1 to 3 were directed to be taken into judicial custody. Liberty was given to both the parties to apply to this Court for a variation, if any found necessary, in the order.
6. Thereafter various orders were passed as per the applications of the parties. At long last when the Rule came up for final hearing before me, it was very strenuously argued by Mr. Jethmalani that
(a) the revision application was not maintainable.
(b) even if this Court was inclined to treat this as an application under Art. 227 of the Constitution or to allow the petitioner to convert the present petition into one under Art. 227 of the Constitution still this Court had no jurisdiction to interfere with the order passed by the learned Magistrate even in its writ jurisdiction under Art. 227 of the Constitution.
(c) in substance the application was one for cancellation of bail and no circumstances were brought on record by the petitioner to justify the cancellation of the bail.
(d) the facts alleged by the Department against the respondents were such that no offence could be imputed to them at all under the provisions of any of the laws and hence the present revision application and all other earlier proceedings instituted by the Department were abuse of the process of law.
7. The arguments on all the above mentioned points were advanced not only quite strenuously but quite at length by the learned Counsel. But after hearing the learned Counsel fully I was satisfied that so far as the abovementioned points Nos. (a), (b) and (c) are concerned, they were wholly unacceptable. Even as regards point No. (d), I was satisfied that the plea made by the learned Counsel was not such where the prosecution could be held to be ex facie not maintainable. I, therefore, ordered that the interim order relating to detention of respondents 1 to 3 in the judicial custody should be continued until the crucial stage of investigation was over. I must state in fairness to Mr. Jethmalani and the other Counsel appearing for the various parties that so far as this part of the order directing the respondents 1 to 3 to be detained in the judicial custody was concerned. Mr. Jethmalani contended that since they were acquiescing in the order, no judgment as such should be delivered by me expressing my opinion relating to the points raised by him. Mr. Patwardhan, on the other hand, stoutly contended that the questions raised by Mr. Jethmalani were being faced by the Courts and by the Department quite frequently and now that the entire matter has been argued threadbare and the Court has rejected the contentions strenuously set up by no less a Counsel than Mr. Jethmalani, it would be in the fitness of things that judgment on the same should be delivered by this Court so that the same could serve as a guidance for the lower Courts as well as the Department.
I am of the opinion that since the various questions have been argued on both the sides quite at length, and with no less breadth and depth, if not, also, with thickness, the time spent for discussion at the bar will be deemed as better spent if the conclusion of the discussion is incorporated in a fully considered judgment of this Court. This is the reason why I am inclined to deliver this judgment dealing with each of the points raised by Mr. Jethmalani as mentioned above.
8. The first contention of Mr. Jethmalani, point (a), is that the present revision application was not maintainable. The principle upon which the argument was founded was that an application made for bail in the lower Court and order based on the same were interlocutory proceedings and hence, the Court's revisional jurisdiction under S. 397(1) of the Criminal PC could not be exercised by this Court having regard to sub-section (2) of the said S. 397. There need be no dispute about this proposition. But the first question was as to whether the instant proceeding, where the learned Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (hereafter, the learned Magistrate) was concerned only with the question of bail and not with the trial of the offence at all, could be considered to be an interlocutory proceeding at all or the order to be an interlocutory order. On first principles, I was of the view that the said proceeding could not be considered to be interlocutory proceeding. The concept of interlocutory proceeding is that the proceeding itself does not result in any finality but is only incidental or ancillary to some kind of substantive proceeding pending in Court. In the instant case, once the application for remand to judicial custody was disposed of by the learned Magistrate one way or the other, the proceeding came toto an end in to and he could wash his hands of the entire proceeding. It must be borne in mind that no complaint was filed by the Department against any of the respondents on the date when the remand application was made. In the ultimate analysis, having regard to the reality of the things, the position was that the entire transaction was at an investigative stage. In fact the investigation was going on. The order for remand to judicial custody was asked for by the Department expressly with a view to facilitate the investigation and with no other purpose. It was conceivable that in the investigation the Department might come to a conclusion that the respondents 1 to 3 were not connected with the offence at all and conceivably no complaint would be filed by the Department against respondents 1 to 3, in which case the respondents 1 to 3 would be free as lark immediately after the period of remand was over. Such a proceeding for order of remand must be, therefore, considered to be a substantive or principal proceeding and not a mere interlocutory proceeding. That was my view on first principles.
However, Mr. Jethmalani placed strong reliance on two authorities, one of the Supreme Court and the other of a learned single Judge of this Court, to repel my view based upon these first principles. He firstly relied upon the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Amar Nath v. State of Haryana, . In that case an observation was made by the Supreme Court by way of an illustration that, "for instance, orders summoning witnesses, adjourning cases, passing orders for bail, calling for reports and such other steps in aid of the pending proceeding, may no doubt amount to interlocutory orders against which no revision would lie under S. 397(2) of the 1973 Code". Relying upon this observation, an entire edifice of argument was raised that the Supreme Court has laid down the final law on this point, namely, that every order granting bail is an interlocutory order.
To my mind, this argument is wholly misleading. It picks up a stray illustration given by the Supreme Court out of its context and purports to use the same as a final adjudication on a question of law. Nothing is farther from truth. In the first place, the very observation that he relies upon considers the passing of orders for bail to be a step in aid for pending proceeding. It contemplates only such order for bail which is passed in a pending proceeding. In such a case, the pending proceeding is the principal proceeding and the application for bail in such proceeding would incidentally be the interlocutory proceeding.
Secondly, the very decision of the Supreme Court in the next para 7 makes the position clear. In this connection the Supreme Court referred to the earlier judgment of the Supreme Court in Central Bank of India v. Gokal Chand, , where it was observed as follows :-
"In a pending proceeding, the Controller, may pass many interlocutory orders under sections 36 and 37, such as orders regarding the summoning of witnesses, discovery, production and inspection of documents, issue of a commission for examination of witnesses, inspection of premises, fixing a date of hearing and the admissibility of a document or the relevancy of a question. All these interlocutory orders are steps taken towards the final adjudication and for assisting the parties in the prosecution of their case in the pending proceeding."
The principle laid down, therefore, is that an order which is intended as a step in aid for bringing the prosecution to its ultimate end is an interlocutory order. An order which itself brings the entire proceeding to an end cannot be considered to be an interlocutory order.
As a matter of fact even in Amar Nath's case , at the fag-end of para 6 itself, after referring to an order for bail as interlocutory proceeding, the Supreme Court observed as follows (at p. 1895 of Cri LJ) :-
"But orders which are matters of moment and which affect or adjudicate the rights of the accused or a particular aspect of the trial cannot be said to be interlocutory orders so as to be outside the purview of the revisional jurisdiction of the High Court."
Now, in the instant proceeding, once the application for remand is rejected and once the bail is granted by the learned Magistrate, no proceeding remains pending before him at all. The right of the Department to have the particular facility for further investigation is finally negatived. The proceeding by itself comes to an end. It is difficult to see how the proceeding could be considered to be interlocutory proceeding.
The reason why the Supreme Court referred in the said Amar Nath's case to order for bail as being interlocutory order, was that orders for bail are interlocutory in a large variety of cases. When a complaint is filed against the accused and the prosecution wants the process to issue, the Court can order the accused to be taken in custody and to be released on bail. Such an order is patently an interlocutory order. In an appeal against conviction, the Court can pass an order granting bail to the accused who is already convicted by the trial Court. Such an order is nothing but an interlocutory order. In an appeal from acquittal the Court is empowered under S. 390 of the Code to direct the accused to be taken in custody and to be released on bail. This order cannot be anything but an interlocutory order. It was this category of bail that was being contemplated by the Supreme Court; not every kind of bail order.
9. But a part from the above mentioned expression used by the Supreme Court in Amar Nath's case , as I see it, the question, to my mind, can be examined also in the light of the subsequent judgment of the Supreme Court in Madhu Limaye v. State of Maharashtra, . In that case, an order rejecting the application challenging the jurisdiction of the Court to proceed with the trial was held not to be an interlocutory order and the revisional application filed against the said order was held by the Supreme Court to be maintainable, disagreeing with the view of this High Court. While taking that view, the Supreme Court went a step further and held as follows (at p. 169 of Cri LJ) :-
"Ordinarily and generally the expression 'interlocutory order' has been understood and taken to mean as a converse of the term 'final order'. In vol. 22 of the third Ed. of Halsbury's Laws of England at page 742, however, it has been stated in para 1606 :-
'a judgment or order may be final for one purpose and interlocutory for another, or final as to part and interlocutory as to part. The meaning of the two words must therefore be considered separately in relation to the particular purpose for which it is required.' In para 1607 it is said :
'In general a judgment or order which determines the principal matter in question is termed final'.' In para 1608 at pages 744 and 745 we find the words :
'An order which does not deal with the final rights of the parties, but either (1) is made before judgment, and gives no final decision on the matters in dispute, but is merely on a matter of procedure, or (2) is made after judgment, and merely directs how the declarations of right already given in the final judgment are to be worked out, is termed 'interlocutory'. An interlocutory order, though not conclusive of the main dispute, may be conclusive as to the subordinate matter with which it deals'.
In para 15 of the said judgment, the Supreme Court has indicated that even certain orders, which would be normally stamped as interlocutory orders, took in their embrace a final adjudication so far as certain important rights of the parties were concerned and that if that was so, the order in question should not be considered as interlocutory order. In this connection the Supreme Court had occasion to deal with Amar Nath's case . The Supreme Court observed in that connection as follows :-
"It is neither advisable, nor possible to make a catalogue of orders to determine which kinds of orders would be merely, purely or simply interlocutory and which kinds of orders would be final, and then to prepare an exhaustive list of those types of orders which will fall in between the two."
It will be seen that having regard to this view taken by the Supreme Court, in fact in Madhu Limaye's case , the larger Bench of the Supreme Court has expressed an opinion that the broad statement of law contained in Amar Nath's case needed certain modification. However, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the decision in Amar Nath's case and held that the order releasing some of the accused on perusal of the police report and subsequently summoning them was not an interlocutory order but was a final order. To my mind, reading the two cases together Amar Nath's case and Madhu Limaye's case, no doubt is left about the legal position, namely, that an order rejecting the Department's application for remand of the accused to judicial custody is a final order and not an interlocutory order.
10. Mr. Jethmalani further relied upon a judgment of a learned single Judge of this Court in Kamal v. B. S. Subhedar, 1981 Cri LJ 1799. Even in that case Mr. Jethmalani was appearing for the accused and he had contended before the learned single Judge that an order granting bail was an interlocutory order. In support of that contention he had relied upon the self same decision of the Supreme Court in Amar Nath's case and particularly the casual observation of the Supreme Court, evidently taking it out of its context. The learned Judge seems to have accepted this contention. But, evidently, the attention of the learned single Judge was not drawn to the very next observation of the Supreme Court in paras 6 and 7 of the judgment. Even the subsequent judgment of the Supreme Court in Madhu Limaye's case was not brought to the notice of the learned single Judge. The case does not appear to have been discussed on principle at all. In this view of the matter I do not think that the said judgment reveals a correct exposition of law on this point.
11. The second point raised by Mr. Jethmalani was that not only the Court had no jurisdiction under S. 397 of the Code, but it had no jurisdiction even under S. 482 of the Code or, for the matter of that, even under Art. 227 of the Constitution to entertain an application against an order granting bail to the accused. In other words, according to the learned Counsel, the order passed by the learned Magistrate granting bail to the accused, Whether justified or not, was a sacrosanct order and it could not be touched by this Court even with a pair of tongs under any of the provisions of the law or the Constitution.
On the face of it, such an argument is untenable. It is my view that every nerve and sinew must be strained by the High Court to repel this view and there must be a face set against such an interpretation of law which makes mockery of our judicial system. It can be said to be one of the basic features of our Constitution that so far as the particular State is concerned, the High Court of the State is the ultimate custodian of Justice to be administered to persons and citizens in the State with even hand. An argument that the Metropolitan Magistrate's order is rendered final by virtue of an Act in supersession of the constitutional mandate is a statement of law just to be stated to be rejected. But since Mr. Jethmalani was serious about the point. I have to deal with it. As regards this Court's jurisdiction under S. 482 of the Code, one has simply to refer to the judgment of the Supreme Court in Madhu Limaye's case once again and it will be seen that the Supreme Court had departed from its earlier view expressed in Amar Nath's case and held that S. 482 did not become inapplicable merely because the High Court's revisional jurisdiction was barred under S. 397(2) of the Code. In that case, the Supreme Court has laid down three serviceable tests for invoking the High Court's jurisdiction under S. 482 of the Code as follows :-
"(1) That the power is not to be resorted to if there is a specific provision in the Code for the redress of the grievance of the aggrieved party;
(2) That it should be exercised very sparingly to prevent abuse of process of any Court or otherwise to secure the ends of justice;
(3) That it should not be exercised as against the express bar of law engrafted in any other provision of the Code."
The Supreme Court pointed out that the bar contained in sub-section (2) of S. 397 operated only to the Court's revisional power. The Supreme Court further held that it case the impugned order is one which clearly brings about a situation spelling an abuse of the process of the Court or if for the purpose of securing the ends of justice interference of the High Court is absolutely necessary, then nothing contained in S. 397(2) can limit or affect the exercise of the inherent power of the High Court under S. 482 of the Code.
As mentioned above, after hearing both the parties I was quite satisfied that the order passed by the learned Magistrate granting bail was a wholly arbitrary order passed upon the assumption that no offence on the part of respondents 1 to 3 was disclosed, as per the case made out by the Department, at all. If that was so, it was necessary in the interest of justice that some leeway should be given to the Department to complete the investigation which was denied by the learned Magistrate without any justification. I was, therefore, of the opinion that if not in its revisional power, this Court had the power under S. 482 of the Code to pass appropriate order either quashing or modifying the impugned order passed by the learned Magistrate.
12. But even more serious than that is the argument of Mr. Jethmalani relating to this Court's power under Art. 227 of the Constitution. The learned Counsel contended that this Court's power under Art. 227 is narrower than under S. 397 of the Code and if S. 397 was not applicable invoking Art. 227 of the Constitution was futile.
I must state that even this statement of law is just to be stated to be rejected. It is futile to contend that one power is narrower than the other. To take an extreme illustration, let us assume that a patently discriminatory order is passed by the lower Court, e.g., out of the two accused persons covered by identical material for prosecution, bail is (rightly) refused by that Court to one but discriminatorily granted to the other. Would not or could not this Court interfere in its writ jurisdiction ? Is Art. 14 suspended for the purpose of orders of bails to be passed by the Magistrates ? if it could and would interfere, does it make any difference that the order is not discriminatory but is only arbitrary ? If it cannot do it in its revisional jurisdiction or in its inherent power, it will do so in its power under Art. 226 and/or Art. 227 of the Constitution and in that respect, the writ power is wider than the said other two powers. It may be that in some cases this Court refuses to exercise its power under Art. 227; but it is not because it is narrower. The reason is that the Court finds that the ends of justice do not require the exercise. Whenever the Court finds that the lower Court has gone somewhat astray from its jurisdiction or has exercised its jurisdiction in a manner which smacks of arbitrariness, which is an element cutting across the root of a judicial approach, this Court will readily interfere with the order in its jurisdiction under Art. 227 provided, of course, the Court is satisfied that ends of justice require such an interference. Arbitrariness is the stark antithesis of the judicial process and in the ultimate analysis the High Court is the ultimate repository of the questions relating to justice between the parties. Mr. Jethmalani contended that the trial Court has done full justice when respondents 1 to 3 have been ordered to be released on bail with reasonable conditions attached to the order of bail. The order of bail may be reasonable so far as it goes, but the question is whether the order of bail should have been passed at all forgetting the needs of investigation. The contention was that if the accused are required to remain present in the office of the Customs Authorities from morning to evening, the requirement of the Department would be satisfied and no particular necessity was there for the accused to languish in the judicial custody. But in that view of the matter, every person, who is suspected of some offence under the Customs Act or under any Act for the matter of that, would have to be released on bail. Even in a murder case, it can be contended on the same basis and with the same reasoning that the accused should be required to be present at the police station from morning till evening and hence no remand to police custody or judicial custody is necessary. The entire provision relating to remand to police custody or judicial custody contained in the Criminal PC would be rendered completely meaningless and otiose by virtue of such reasoning.
But Mr. Patwardhan pointed out that immediately after the accused were arrested, a considerable progress was made in the investigation and immediately after they were released on bail, the investigation had been hampered. He pointed out that the Department was not asking for any unreasonably long time. In fact he submitted to the order of the Court and submitted that any time that may be thought reasonable by this Court may be given and assured that the investigation would be accelerated and completed within that time and if that could not be done, the Department would keep the Court informed about the progress of the investigation. I personally scanned the entire proceeding from time to time and I granted time to the investigating machinery to investigate into the matter within less than 15 days' time. Significantly enough, the Department was in a position to complete the investigation within the time allowed by the Court so far as these respondents 1 to 3 were concerned after the order staying the operation of the lower Court's order granting bail was passed.
But the main point that I want to emphasise in this connection is as regards the general belief which has gained ground with the bar in particular and the litigating public in general that justice lies only in showing and giving accommodation to the accused and as if no principle of justice is involved when prosecution wants to find out clues against the accused. This is not the judicial view; but it does appear to be a view very liberally shared particularly by the members of the bar. A court is supposed to bring about justice when it acquits the accused; but the process of convicting the accused is equally a judicial process and the Court which does not convict an accused in a proper case is as much deviating from the path of justice as it does when it finds that no evidence exists against the accused and still convicts him. I, therefore, do not think that when the bail was granted by the learned Magistrate, an order conferring justice upon the parties was necessarily passed. An improper order not justified by the provisions and the spirit of the law is also an unjust order, whether it is made in favour of the accused or in favour of the prosecution. This statement may smack of trite truism, but it has to be mouthed and penned because the contrary belief, I have been noticing, seems to have been quite deeply entrenched in the bar's thought machine though nobody mouths it by audible phrases :
13. The third contention of the learned Counsel was that this revision application was tantamount to an application for cancellation of bail. I may state here that this argument was advanced not only by Mr. Jethmalani but also by Mr. Ashok Desai, the learned Counsel appearing for one of the respondents, and also by Dr. Kantawala, the learned Counsel appearing for the third respondent. I was unable to stomach the argument. On the face of it, the contention is illogical and irrational. When an order is passed by the trial Court and the High Court is later on approached for the purpose of the cancellation of the bail, the basic postulate is that the order was valid when it was passed, but that on account of supervening circumstances it needed to be varied or modified or cancelled. When you file a revision application against the order granting bail, your grievance is that the order was bad from its inception. The ratio of the judgments in the cases of Bashir v. State of Haryana, , Gurucharan Singh v. State (Delhi Administration), AIR 1978 SC 179 : (1978 Cri LJ 129), and Delhi Administration v. Sanjay Gandhi, has, therefore, no application to the facts of this case. Those were either cases where the bail granted by the lower Court was attempted to be cancelled at the hands of the High Court or the High Court was otherwise moved for cancellation of bail by an initial order the validity of which initial order was not challenged by appropriate proceedings and it was in this connection that the Supreme Court laid down certain guidelines when such power of cancellation of bail should be exercised by the High Court.
I may state here that if in the instant case the Department had approached this Court not in its revisional jurisdiction but it its jurisdiction under S. 439(2) of the Code, I would certainly have to consider whether any subsequent conduct on the part of the respondents 1 to 3 justified or warranted the cancellation of bail. In other words, I would have to go into the question as to whether abuse of the order of bail by the accused was sufficiently brought home by the Department to the satisfaction of this Court. But in the instant case really speaking, this consideration was totally irrelevant. For the reasons which will be briefly mentioned here presently, I was satisfied that the order of bail granted by the learned Magistrate was unjustifiable from its inception and needed being revised and set right.
14. So far as the last point urged by the learned Counsel, point (d), is concerned, I agree with the learned Counsel that I should not indicate my final view on this point because the entire question should be left open for the consideration of the trial court as and when the prosecution is instituted against the accused. The learned Counsel stated that since we were only at the threshold of the matter, he was not that much ready with the point urged by him as he would have been if it was to be argued in an appeal or at the time of the trial. I appreciate the learned Counsel's difficulty. I must state that even Mr. Patwardhan was fair enough to state that mere indication of Court's view prima facie would be sufficient for his purpose and a final adjudication of the question need not be made by this Court at this stage. But I must indicate my prima facie view of the question because, to my mind, the view taken by the learned Magistrate was erroneous at least prima facie and it is on this erroneous view as regards the legal position that the order granting bail is based. The point is as to whether the Department can be said to have made out a reasonable case of an offence by the accused under S. 111(o) and (p) read with S. 135 of the Customs Act.
The allegation in the instant case is that the goods which had found way to the Manish Market and other places in Bombay were such whose import was virtually prohibited. The reason why I qualify the word 'prohibited' by the word 'virtually' is that it was only under certain conditions that the import was allowed. The import was allowed for the actual user. If a person exported certain goods and for the purpose of manufacture of those goods, he required certain raw materials, the same could be imported under the actual user's licence. The contention of the Department is that under the garb of importing these goods under the actual user's licence, the goods were imported only for the purpose of being diverted to the common market for general sale and in this sense, the prohibition to the import was set at naught. According to the Department, the intention to import these goods for purposes other than the declared purpose existed even before the import and the ante-import declaration was just an eye-wash, being fake ab initio. The Department contends that this is an offence under Clause (o) of S. 111 of the Customs Act which provides for the confiscation of "any goods exempted, subject to any condition, from duty or any prohibition in respect of the import thereof under this Act or any other law for the time being in force, in respect of which the condition is not observed unless the non-observance of the condition was sanctioned by the proper officer".
In any event, according to the Department, these were notified goods and they were liable for confiscation being such notified goods in relation to which any provisions of Chapter IVA or of any rule made under this Act for carrying out the purposes of that Chapter have been contravened.
15. So far as Clause (o) was concerned, Mr. Jethmalani made a grievance that the plea relating to the part played by the accused in this episode resulting into an offence under the said cl. (o) was specifically given up by the learned Counsel appearing for the Department before the learned Magistrate and hence it was not open for him to reagitate the plea before this Court.
With the help of both the Counsel I examined the relevant provisions and I was satisfied that at least prima facie the abandonment of the said plea on the part of the learned Counsel was not necessarily justified. Mr. Patwardhan frankly stated before the Court that the matter had come up for hearing before the learned Chief Metropolitan Magistrate; as a case of emergency and there was hardly any time available for him to study the entire brief and the legal position and hence he had stated before the learned Magistrate that Clause (o) of S. 111 may not be applicable and he conceded that he emphasised only Clause (p) of S. 111. But I am prepared to assume that the learned Counsel had completely given up the plea under Clause (o). Still, to my mind, there was no justification for the learned Counsel not to apply his mind to the question as to whether the concession was justified. I examined the scheme of the Act with reference to both the Clauses(o) and (p) of S. 111 of the Act and I am satisfied that it is possible for the prosecution, in the context of the facts of this case, to invoke both the said clauses at least alternatively. I make it clear that I do not wish to suggest, even in the least possible manner, that ultimately the evidence on record will justify the conviction of respondents 1 to 3 under either of these two clauses read with S. 135 of the Act. But all that I want to state is that there was no justification for the lower Court to make a short-work of the prosecution case and to follow the line of least resistance by accepting an unjustified concession given by the prosecution. To my mind, the justice-delivery process involves as much a question of finding as to whether offence is not committed as it lies in finding whether the offence is committed and if a particular provision of law is required to be construed for this purpose, attempt should be to take stock of the legal provision with as much fullness as possible. In any event, if the superior Court finds that the concession of law was wrongly made, the superior Court will not be justified to turn a blind eye to the correct interpretation of law concession in respect of which was evidently unjustified.
Mr. Jethmalani tried to suggest that even Clause (p) of S. 111 could not apply. I was not prepared to accept the contention and I was satisfied that a prima facie case for application of even Clause (p) was readily made out by the prosecution. However, I do not wish to discuss the position further because, as stated above, I do not propose to give my final opinion on this point, which opinion might result in prejudicing the accused in their trial if at all it materialises. This statement I am making expressly at the request of Mr. Jethmalani which request is not opposed by Mr. Patwardhan.
Since the order is already passed and has worked itself out, no further order in this petition is necessary. The petition stands disposed of.
16. Order accordingly.