Summary customs recovery is limited to penalties adjudged by customs officers, not appellate penalties on commutation.

Section 193 of the Sea Customs Act, 1878 was held to permit summary recovery only where a penalty has been adjudged by an officer of Customs and cannot be realised from goods in his charge. Where the Chief Customs Authority first imposed a penalty on commutation of confiscation under Section 190, that penalty was not treated as one adjudged by an officer of Customs for Section 193 purposes. The Customs Collector therefore had no authority to notify a Magistrate for recovery, and the attachment proceedings were set aside because the Act did not extend the summary recovery route to such appellate penalties.

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Issues: Whether Section 193 of the Sea Customs Act, 1878 authorises the Customs Collector to notify a Magistrate for recovery of a penalty first levied by the Chief Customs Authority on commutation of confiscation under Section 190.

Analysis: The recovery machinery in the Act is framed around a penalty or increased rate of duty adjudged by an officer of Customs. The scheme of Sections 182, 183, 188, 189, 190 and 192 shows that the original adjudicating officer levies the penalty or confiscation, while the appellate authority may confirm, alter, annul, remit or, with the owner's consent, commute confiscation to a penalty. Section 193 authorises notification to a Magistrate only where the officer of Customs himself has adjudged the penalty and cannot realise it from goods in his charge. A penalty imposed for the first time by the Chief Customs Authority under Section 190 is not a penalty adjudged by an officer of Customs within Section 193. The Court also noted that the Act contained a lacuna because it did not provide the same summary recovery route for such appellate penalties.

Conclusion: Section 193 does not apply to a penalty first levied by the appellate authority under Section 190, and the Customs Collector had no authority to notify the Magistrate for its recovery.

Final Conclusion: The warrants of attachment were set aside and the revision application succeeded, as the recovery proceedings were without authority under the Act.

Ratio Decidendi: The summary recovery mechanism in Section 193 is confined to penalties adjudged by an officer of Customs and cannot be extended to a penalty first imposed by the appellate authority upon commutation under Section 190.

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