Content-based import prohibition requires specific identification of offending passages; vague confiscation orders are unsustainable.

Confiscation of imported books under the Customs Act cannot rest on a bare reference to a prohibitory notification where the ban depends on the content of the publication. The authority must identify the specific offending words, signs or visible representations and explain how the particular books fall within the notification; otherwise, bald show-cause notices and non-speaking confiscation orders are defective. Because such action affects business rights and freedom of speech and expression, this specification is mandatory. On the stated facts, the absence of any identification of the offending material vitiated the confiscation, and the seizure was unsustainable.

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Issues: Whether the confiscation of imported books under Section 111(d) of the Customs Act, 1962, based on Notification No. 77 dated 22 September 1956, was sustainable when the show-cause notices and confiscation orders did not specify which books or which portions of the publications offended the prohibitory notification.

Analysis: Notification No. 77 prohibited import only of books or documents containing words, signs or visible representations having the specified objectionable effect. Where the prohibition depends on the contents of the particular publication, the authority must identify the offending material and state how the publication falls within the notification. Bald notices and non-speaking confiscation orders that merely invoke the notification as a whole do not disclose the factual basis for confiscation. Since the action affected both business rights and freedom of speech and expression, the requirement of specification was mandatory. The absence of such specification in the notices and orders vitiated the confiscation.

Conclusion: The confiscation orders were invalid and were quashed; the seizure could not be sustained against the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: A confiscation founded on a prohibitory notification that turns on the contents of publications must contain a specific, reasoned identification of the offending material; a vague or bald order is unsustainable, especially where fundamental rights are implicated.

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