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2021 (8) TMI 129 - HC - CustomsIllegal detention - Smuggling - Gold - sufficient reason for the continued detention of the detenu beyond the period of 11 weeks from the date of detention - constitution of Advisory Board - HELD THAT:- The provisions of Section 8 (a) of the COFEPOSA Act provide for the constitution of Advisory Boards. Significantly, those provisions do not use the words ‘appropriate Government’. Section 8 (b), no doubt says that the reference to the Advisory Board shall be by the ‘appropriate Government’ and uses the words ‘the Advisory Board’. We cannot, however, give any significance to the word ‘the’ before the words ‘Advisory Board’ to hold that the Advisory Board must be one constituted by the appropriate Government. We cannot read into Section 8 (a), the requirement that the reference must be to an Advisory Board constituted by the appropriate Government. Section 8 (b) uses the words ‘appropriate Government’ only to indicate that the reference must be made by the appropriate Government as defined in Section 2 (a). The Parliament deliberately has not used the words ‘appropriate Government’ in Section 8 (a) and we see no reason to read it in that manner. The Constitution as it stands today does not call for such an interpretation. It appears to us that the provisions of Art.22(4) of the Constitution and Section 8 of the COFEPOSA only requires that the case of the detenu could be considered by an Advisory Board consisting of persons having the qualifications mentioned in Art.22(4) and constituted by appropriate notification under Section 8 of the COFEPOSA Act. The Learned Counsel for the petitioner has no case that the Advisory Board which considered the case of the detenu has not been constituted under Section 8 of the COFEPOSA Act. There is no merit in the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that only the Board constituted under the notification dated 17.3.2020 was competent to consider the case of the detenu - Petition dismissed.
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