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2024 (5) TMI 1008 - CALCUTTA HIGH COURTRevision Application - Alternative remedy - seizure of goods - Operation of duty-free shops at an international airport - deemed to be outside the territory of India - commission of offences punishable u/s 36 (1) the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 - license agreement with the Airport Authority of India - HELD THAT:- The present proceeding has been initiated in 2016 and this criminal revision has preferred in the 2019. Thus the petitioner herein should have first exhausted equally efficacious alternative statutory remedy as provided under the act before approaching this Court. But keeping with the view taken by the Apex Court in Hotel Ashoka (Indian Tour. Dev. Cor. Ltd.) vs Assistant Commissioner of Commercial Taxes and Ors. [2012 (2) TMI 62 - SUPREME COURT] and considering that 9 (nine) long years have passed, the present revision is being disposed of on merit without directing the petitioners to move the statutory appellate authority, only in the interest of justice. The complainant in this case did not have the authority to initiate the present proceedings against the petitioners in respect of the alleged offences which admittedly took place in a duty free shop at an international airport which is beyond/outside the custom frontiers of India. Accordingly the proceedings in this case, being not in accordance with law and thus an abuse of the process of Court/law, is liable to be quashed. CRR 819 of 2019 is allowed. The proceedings u/s 36 (1) the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 read with Rule 32 (3) of the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011 pending before the Learned Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, is hereby quashed in respect of the petitioners herein.
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