Customs confessions need proper caution before use in evidence, and preventive writ relief may stop threatened penal action.

Confessional statements recorded by customs officers under Section 108 of the Customs Act are inadmissible unless the person is first given the caution required for a confession under Section 164(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The safeguard against self-incrimination and the requirement of fairness were treated as applicable, and the absence of warning was held to be a substantial defect not cured by Section 463 of the Code. Preventive relief under Article 226 was also available where show-cause and penal consequences had already been set in motion and threatened action could affect personal liberty.

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Issues: (i) Whether statements recorded from persons summoned under Section 108 of the Customs Act without administering the caution required before a confession can be used in evidence; (ii) Whether a writ petition is maintainable to prevent threatened penal action based on such statements.

Issue (i): Whether statements recorded from persons summoned under Section 108 of the Customs Act without administering the caution required before a confession can be used in evidence.

Analysis: Section 108 empowers customs officers to summon persons and require them to state the truth, but it does not itself authorise the recording of confessional statements. The procedural safeguard embodied in Section 164(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 was treated as applicable to such confessional statements, because the statutory scheme did not exclude the general criminal procedure and the person examined cannot be compelled to incriminate himself. The right against self-incrimination and the requirement of fairness made the warning mandatory; absence of that warning was held to be a substantial defect not cured by Section 463 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.

Conclusion: The statements were inadmissible in evidence and liable to be excluded from consideration for any purpose.

Issue (ii): Whether a writ petition is maintainable to prevent threatened penal action based on such statements.

Analysis: The relief was sought at a stage when show-cause notices and penal consequences had already been set in motion, so the petition was directed against threatened and continuing infringement of personal liberty rather than against a completed prosecution. Protective relief under Article 226 was treated as available where infringement was imminent, and the maintainability objection based on absence of launched prosecution was rejected.

Conclusion: The writ petitions were maintainable.

Final Conclusion: The impugned statements could not be acted upon for any penal proceeding, and the petitioners were entitled to protection against their use in customs or other enforcement action.

Ratio Decidendi: A confessional statement recorded by a customs authority under Section 108 of the Customs Act is inadmissible unless the person is first cautioned in substance as required for confessions under Section 164(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and preventive relief under Article 226 is available where threatened action would infringe personal liberty.

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