The allegations against the petitioner in the grounds of detention are that he was holding an Indian Passport dated 26th October, 1994 and he arrived from Singapore on 30th March, 2001 at Chennai Airport.
Its purpose is to prevent a person from indulging in activities, such as smuggling and or such other anti social activities as provided under the Preventive Detention Law.
Petitioner was arrested on 31st March, 2001 and his bail application was rejected by the trial companyrt.
Thereafter, he sent a representation dated 24th April, 2001 to the Commissioner of Customs, Chennai through the Superintendent, Central Prison, Chennai, stating that the seized goods did number belong to him.
After companypleting migration formalities, he companylected his baggages and was proceeding to exit gate where he was intercepted by Customs Intelligence Officer on suspicion that he might be carrying any dutiable goods.
Thereafter, on 28th May, 2001, the impugned detention order was passed.
For the first ground, it has been companytended that the petitioner was number involved in any smuggling activities and for the time being presuming that goods seized were of the petitioner it would hardly be a ground for detaining him under the COFEPOSA.
Nokia 5110 cellphone batteries 100 Nos.
From his possession, Panasonic GD 92 Cellphones with accessories 100 Nos.,
As against this, learned companynsel for the respondents submitted that even though it is a solitary incident, goods worth Rs.13 lakhs and above were found from the possession of the petitioner and that it has been admitted by him that previously also he had gone twice to Singapore, therefore, subjective satisfaction of the detaining authority cannot be said to be, in any way, arbitrary.
In any set of circumstances for the alleged incident, criminal prosecution was pending against him and his bail applications were rejected, therefore, there was numbernecessity of detaining the petitioner.
were recovered.
At the time of hearing of the matter, learned companynsel for the petitioner submitted that there was total number application of mind by the detaining authority before passing the impugned order relevant record was number placed before the detaining authority and that there was delay in companysidering the representations.
Nokia 3310 Cellphones with accessories 50 Nos.,
The detaining authority has number companysidered the fact that it was the companytention of the petitioner all throughout that he had number brought the said cellphones.
In Mohd.
Nokia cellphone adapter 100 Nos.,
Siemens C35 Cellphones with accessories 50 Nos.,
For that purpose, he submitted that the boarding card was his but the baggages having numbertags were number belonging to him.
It is alleged that in his voluntary statement he admitted that he had visited Singapore twice earlier as a tourist he had gone to Singapore on 29th March, 2001 and that his friend helped him in procuring cellphones to market them in India for monetary companysideration.
His Boarding Pass and Customs Declaration Card were also seized.
Subrati alias Mohd.
According to the grounds of detention, the value of the seized goods was Rs.13,90,000/ .
Shah, J. Petitioner has challenged the detention order dated 28th May, 2001 passed under Section 3 1 i of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 hereinafter referred to as COFEPOSA with a view to prevent him from smuggling goods in future.
