Customs Officers May Examine a Suspect Under Section 107; Gold Smugglers Deserve Jail: Supreme Court

Customs officers searched the appellant's jewellery shop in Calcutta in 1965 and found two gold bars with foreign markings hidden under the mattress on which he sat (para 8). At his residence an indigenous gold bar was recovered from an almirah whose key he handed over; the same afternoon he was examined at the Customs House and his statement (Ex. 9) recorded (para 9). He was charged under Rules 126-I and 126-P of the Defence of India Rules, 1962 and Section 135(b) of the Customs Act; the Magistrate convicted him, and on appeal he was acquitted on one charge while the sentence on the others was sustained (para 10).

Krishna Iyer J. held that the Supreme Court interferes with concurrent findings of fact only for grave miscarriage of justice, and the recoveries and the admissions in Ex. 9 justified them (para 13). Rule 126-P(2)(ii) penalises possessing "any quantity of gold" in contravention of Part XII-A, and smuggled gold cannot be exempted without stultifying the law (para 15). Section 107 is designed to facilitate investigation without restriction on person, place or time: "’Any person’ in the section certainly covers every person including a suspect and potential accused" (para 16). Article 20(3) did not arise because the examination was not of an accused person, and ‘any place’ includes the Customs House (para 16). Khanna J. agreed that Section 107 does not exclude a person later arraigned as an accused, who is often the best person to explain the gold found with him (para 3). On sentence, social and economic offences stand on a graver footing, and for professional economic offenders "incarceration- is peculiarly potent" (paras 18-19); the Court endorsed a Bombay High Court view that economic crimes must be curbed effectively (paras 20-21).