Supreme Court dismisses appeal, upholding rejection of Notice of Motion.

The appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court, upholding the rejection of the Notice of Motion No. 796 of 1988 by the learned Single Judge. The Court found no justification to intervene in the decision as the Customs Department had already released 76 out of 87 detained cases to the appellants, who failed to ship 5 cases to foreign buyers. The responsibility for the remaining cases now rested with the appellants, and the Court concluded that directing the Customs Authorities to handle them was not warranted. Consequently, the appeal was dismissed with costs to be borne by the appellants.

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Issues:
1. Challenge to the order rejecting Notice of Motion No. 796 of 1988.

Analysis:
The appeal was filed to challenge the rejection of the Notice of Motion No. 796 of 1988 by the learned Single Judge. The original petitioners/appellants had initially filed a writ petition to challenge the detention of 87 packages/cases by Customs Authorities suspecting them to contain antiquities. The writ petition was allowed by the Court, permitting the export of the items. An appeal by the Union of India against this decision was dismissed. Subsequently, the Supreme Court allowed the release of 76 cases out of the 87 detained cases. Despite receiving the released cases, the appellants only shipped 71 cases to foreign buyers, leaving 5 cases in the docks. A show cause notice was issued by the Customs Department regarding these 5 cases, which led to the filing of the present writ petition and the Notice of Motion No. 796 of 1988.

The appellants sought direction for the Customs Authorities to take charge of the 5 cases lying in the docks until the final disposal of the petition. However, the Court found no merit in this request. The Customs Department had already released the 76 cases as per the Supreme Court's order, transferring the title of the 5 remaining cases to the appellants. The Court noted that it was not within its purview to direct the Customs Department to handle the 5 cases, as the responsibility now rested with the appellants. Therefore, the Court concluded that there was no justification to intervene in the decision of the learned Single Judge to reject the Notice of Motion.

In the final judgment, the Court dismissed the appeal, upholding the decision of the learned Single Judge. The Court found no reason to interfere with the impugned order and ordered the appeal to fail, with costs to be borne by the appellants.

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