S. Jamal v. The Chief Commissioner of Customs & Another
2008-01-11
R.REGUPATHI
body2008
DigiLaw.ai
Judgment :- The petitioner, alleging that some of the customs officials posted at the International Passenger Terminal of Anna Airport, Chennai, indulged in irregularities and corruption, made a complaint to the Chief Commissioner of customs, Chennai. According to him, in spite of the serious allegations made against the named officials, neither an enquiry has been conducted nor a case registered by the Customs Department on such complaint; hence, the present petition has been filed for a direction to the first respondent to conduct investigation through the second respondent on the complaint made by the petitioner. 2. Learned Special Public Prosecutor submits that the petitioner is a smuggler and was arrested earlier for having indulged in offences under the Customs Act; that he was also detained under the provisions of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities (COFEPOSA) Act; and that the son of the petitioner was also indulging in smuggling activities, for which, a case was filed against him; in such circumstances, it is ex facie apparent that only with an ulterior motive and mala fide intention, both the complaint before the first respondent and the present petition before this Court have been preferred. 3. I have heard the counsel appearing on either side and perused the materials available on record. It is seen that on the complaint of the petitioner, an enquiry has been conducted by the Joint Commissioner of Customs (CCO), Customs House, Chennai-1, and, in para No.4 of the Enquiry Report, it has been stated as follows:- "4. Coming to the specifics of the complaint, there is no person by the name of Shri Rajendra Prasad working as Public Relations Officer at this airport. Shri Jamal has levelled allegations against Shri Suresh Babu, ACO in the past also for reasons best known to him. The concerned officer has not come to any adverse notice at this Airport. Similarly never a complaint has been received against S/Shri Tiwari and Mishra and nothing adverse was noticed against them. Allegations of illegal gratification being collected is baseless and deserves rejection. The same is being done with a view to tarnish the image of airport and the officers working there. The allegation that out of 40 such trade passengers arriving at this terminal, only 3 or 4 passengers are brought to book and rest of them are let off is baseless.
The same is being done with a view to tarnish the image of airport and the officers working there. The allegation that out of 40 such trade passengers arriving at this terminal, only 3 or 4 passengers are brought to book and rest of them are let off is baseless. From the facts and figures available at this end, it is seen that passengers arriving at this airport who are bringing contraband goods are subjected to duty payment, adjudication, arrest, prosecution and COFEPOSA as per law. Number of cases booked in the recent past belies the truth in these allegations. " Admittedly, the petitioner is an offender, who indulged in smuggling and the son of the petitioner is also said to have involved in similar offences. It is quite evident from the face of the records, in particular the report of the Joint Commissioner, that the petitioner, only to wreck vengeance against the customs officials, made such allegations, which are bald and baseless; that being so, I do not find any merit in the Petition. Consequently, the same is dismissed as devoid of merits.