Delhi: Man moves HC over auction of gold seized from him despite his revision application pending

The Delhi High Court on Thursday issued notice to the Ministry of Finance's Additional Secretary and Commissioner of Customs (Airport and General) IGI Airport on a petition against the alleged auction of gold seized from the petitioner when his revision application challenging the absolute confiscation of the gold and penalty imposed on him is pending.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh asked the Ministry of Finance's Additional Secretary and Commissioner of Customs (Airport and General) IGI Airport to file a reply on the petition and listed the matter for further hearing on January 12, 2022.

The petitioner, Neeraj Kumar Saini, in his petition filed through advocate Madhusudan Agnihotri, said that the act of the respondent of sale of gold through auction is in gross violation of law as the same was done without any intimation to the petitioner, even when the revision application of the petitioner was pending before Additional Secretary, Government of India, Ministry of Finance.

According to the petition, he is a citizen of India and has a valid passport and in the year 2015, the petitioner along with his friends, in search of a job travelled to Dubai but could not find a suitable job. However, with some personal funds and with some borrowed money, the petitioner purchased gold weighing 741.85 and returned to India. The subject gold was firstly seized by the customs officials and subsequently disposed of/ sold through auction by the customs authorities during the pendency of petitioner revision application.

Henceforth, the petitioner has sought direction from Delhi High Court to issue direction to Custom Department to restore an amount equivalent to the market value of the goods along with interest thereon from the date of auction till the date of restoration and award costs of the present proceedings in favour of the petitioner and against respondent Custom Department.

He has also sought to set aside/quash impugned order dated April 1 passed by the revisionary authority in his revision application and allow his appeal dated January 17, 2017, filed before Commissioner of Customs (Appeals).

The petitioner told the Court that the Additional Commissioner of Customs, based upon show cause notice and without considering the reply of the petitioner passed the order dated November 22, 2016, thereby wrongfully directing the absolute confiscation of the gold and denied the custom duty to the petitioner, erroneously imputing mis-declaration and concealment upon the petitioner with an intention to evade payment of customs and impose a penalty of Rs 3,25,000 under sections 112 and 114AA of the Customs Act on the petitioner.

He has challenged the said decision before the Commissioner (Appeals) under section 128 of the Customs Act against the order dated November 22, 2016, praying for setting aside of the order of Additional Commissioner.

Commissioner (Appeals) vide order dated May 7, 2018, had partly allowed the appeal of the petitioner, thereby reducing the penalty imposed upon the petitioner to Rs 2,50,000 and upholding the direction for absolute confiscation of gold as legal and valid.

Aggrieved from the said order filed a Revision Application under section 129-DD of the Customs Act on November 19, 2018, before the respondent Additional Secretary against the impugned order dated May 7, 2018 as well as the order dated November 2, 2016, and prayed for setting aside of the impugned orders.

He also told the Court that as per an application filed under the Right to Information Act, 2005, he came to know that the gold seized from the petitioner weighing 741.85 grams had been ''disposed of/sold by the department through auction dated May 27, 2019".

( With inputs from ANI )

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor