Notice delay under customs seizure law affects retention of goods, not confiscation or penalty jurisdiction.

Failure to issue notice within the prescribed time under Section 110(2) of the Customs Act, 1962, and the corresponding proviso to Section 79 of the Gold (Control) Act, 1968, does not extinguish confiscation or penalty proceedings. The time limit regulates continued detention of seized goods and, if notice is not issued in time, the authority must return the goods. It does not curtail the adjudicating authority's jurisdiction to proceed, unless the statute expressly makes non-compliance fatal to adjudication.

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Issues: Whether failure to issue notice within the period prescribed under Section 110(2) of the Customs Act, 1962 and the corresponding proviso to Section 79 of the Gold (Control) Act, 1968 bars confiscation and penalty proceedings, or only entitles the person from whom the goods were seized to return of the seized goods.

Analysis: Section 110(2) of the Customs Act, 1962 does not prescribe a limitation period for initiating adjudication; it operates on the consequence of continued detention of seized goods beyond six months without notice under Section 124. The earlier decisions relied on were understood as requiring notice for extension of detention, not as holding that adjudication itself lapses on expiry of the six-month period. The later Supreme Court authority clarified that delay in issuing the notice affects only the power to retain the seized goods and does not denude the adjudicating authority of power to proceed. The same reasoning applies to Section 79 of the Gold (Control) Act, 1968, whose scheme similarly provides for return of seized goods upon non-issuance of notice within time, but does not extinguish confiscation or penalty proceedings.

Conclusion: Failure to issue notice within the prescribed time does not bar confiscation or penalty proceedings; it only obliges the authority to return the seized goods.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the statute fixes a time limit only for notice affecting retention of seized goods, non-compliance with that time limit does not extinguish adjudicatory jurisdiction for confiscation or penalty unless the statute expressly so provides.

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