Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

13. Learned senior counsel for the appellants would also contend that compounding of the offences under Section 54 is not during the course of a trial or in the trial of a compoundable offence and, therefore, an order of empowered officer in compounding the offence is not an order of acquittal; it is plain and simple departmental compounding. He urged that the effect of the compounding offences, as provided in Section 320(8) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, (for short, `the Code') is not applicable to the compounding of offences under Section 54 of the 1972 Act as amended by Act 16 of 2003. He also referred to two decisions of this Court (i) Sewpujanrai Indrasanrai Ltd. v. Collector of Customs  and Ors.1 to draw distinction between the expressions, "offender", "offence" and "confiscation" and (ii) Biswabahan Das v. Gopen Chandra Hazarika and Ors.2, particularly, paragraphs 8, 9 and 13 thereof. Learned senior counsel, thus, submitted that the view of the High Court in quashing the order of forfeiture of the seized items is contrary to the statutory provisions in the 1972 Act as amended by Act 16 of 2003.

35. The observations made by this Court in Biswabahan Das2 may be useful in order to understand the effect of compounding offence/s. That was a case in which this Court was concerned with the provision for composition of forest offence under Assam Forest Regulation, 1891 - a provision quite similar to Section 54 of the 1972 Act prior to amendment by Act 16 of 2003. This Court said:

".........It must be borne in mind that although the marginal note to s. 62 of the Assam Regulation is "power to compound offences" the word "compounding" is not used in sub-s. (1) clause (a) of that section. That provision only empowers a forest officer to accept compensation for a forest offence from a person suspected of having committed it. The person so suspected can avoid being proceeded with for the offence by rendering compensation. He may think that he was being unjustly suspected of an offence and he ought to defend himself or he may consider it prudent on his part to pay such compensation in order to avoid the harassment of a prosecution even when he is of the view that he had not committed the offence. By adopting the latter course he does not remove the suspicion of having committed the offence unless he is to have such benefit conferred on him by some provision of law. In effect the payment of compensation amounts to his acceptance of the truth of the charge against him. Sub-s. (2) of s. 62 only protects him with regard to further proceedings, but has not the effect of clearing his character or vindicating his conduct."