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2022 (6) TMI 628 - HC - CustomsSmuggling - Baggage Rules - Bonafide baggage or not - Gold Jewellery - Liquor - whether the respective petitioners were required to declare jewellery items worn by them on their person after disembarking from the aircraft or were entitled to walk through green channel without making any declaration before the proper officer of the Customs Department? - levy of penalty - HELD THAT:- As per Section 80 of the Customs Act, 1962, a proper officer, at the request of a passenger, can detain any article in a baggage of a passenger which are either dutiable or the import of which is prohibited, in respect of which, a true declaration has been made under Section 77 for being returned on his leaving India and if for any reason, the passenger is unable to collect the article at the time of leaving India, the article may be returned to him through any other passenger authorised by him who would be leaving India or as cargo consigned to him - jewellery items are not articles of personal effect. Jewellery are any other articles other than the articles of “personal effect”. Therefore, the petitioners being tourist within the meaning of Rule 2(1)(v) of the said Rules are governed by Sub Clause (b) of the Rule 3 of Baggage Rules, 2016. The said Rule read with Annexure I makes it clear that gold or silver ornaments upto a value of Rs.50,000/- worn in person or carried on person are only freely importable. Import of gold or silver ornaments exceeding Rs.50,000/- cannot be considered as part of bonafide baggage of tourist travelling to India. The petitioner should have paid customs duty, if they intended to deliver, sell them or gift them to a person in India. On the other hand, if they intended to retain them, they should have requested the proper officer to detain them for being returned to them. The reasoning of the learned single judge of the Kerala High Court inVIGNESWARAN SETHURAMAN VERSUS UNION OF INDIA [2014 (12) TMI 268 - KERALA HIGH COURT] that “The Customs Act, 1962 and the Baggage Rules, 1998 do not provide sufficient warning to foreign tourists entering India that wearing a gold chain is prohibited. The Act and the Rules do not even remotely indicate that a foreign tourist entering India cannot wear a gold chain on his person, in other words, foreign tourists entering India are in a boundless sea of uncertainty as to whether it is prohibited or not. As the Customs Act, 1962 and the rules framed thereunder contemplate confiscation and levy of penalty as also prosecution, the State has a duty to specify with a degree of certainty as to what is prohibited and what is not, without leaving it to the foreign tourist to guess what is prohibited and what is not.” cannot be accepted. Further, one fails to understand, petitioners who claim to be pilgrims visiting an alien country would wear costly jewellery even if it be their customs - the fact that the petitioners also purchased 112 bottles liquor beyond the permissible limits and attempted to walk though the green channel without making declaration also shows that the visit to India by the petitioners were not purely as pilgrimage alone - the conduct of the petitioners attempting to walk through the green channel without proper declaration had raised serious doubts and thus proceedings initiated against the petitioners are in accordance with the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962. Petition dismissed.
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