Unauthorised firearm import and penalty require proof of importer or abettor status; confiscation and redemption were sustained for named consignees.

Unauthorised import of firearms without the requisite import licence or customs clearance permit attracted confiscation and personal penalty where the named consignees were the individual importers and lacked the necessary documents. Confiscation was therefore sustained, but redemption on payment of fine was allowed in line with parity for similar consignments, and the penalties on those consignees were upheld. Penalty could not be imposed on a third person merely because his name appeared in other house air way bills; absent evidence that the named consignees were fictitious or that he had abetted the imports, his penalty for those consignments was set aside. Liability for unauthorised import must be supported by proof of importer or abettor status.

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Issues: (i) Whether the fire arms imported in the names of Sharfuddin Khan and his wife, Quresha Begum, were liable to confiscation and penalty for import without the requisite import licence or customs clearance permit. (ii) Whether Sharfuddin Khan could be saddled with penalty in respect of the fire arms imported in the names of other individual consignees shown in the House Air Way Bills.

Issue (i): Whether the fire arms imported in the names of Sharfuddin Khan and his wife, Quresha Begum, were liable to confiscation and penalty for import without the requisite import licence or customs clearance permit.

Analysis: The record showed that both were individual consignees for one fire arm each and did not possess the documents required for import of fire arms. The import was therefore in contravention of the Customs law and the connected import control provisions. Since similar relief had already been extended to some other consignees from the same consignment, parity warranted an option of redemption in their cases also.

Conclusion: The confiscation was sustained, but each of them was permitted to redeem one fire arm on payment of fine, and the personal penalty imposed on them was upheld.

Issue (ii): Whether Sharfuddin Khan could be saddled with penalty in respect of the fire arms imported in the names of other individual consignees shown in the House Air Way Bills.

Analysis: The adjudicating authority had treated each named consignee as the importer and had not recorded any finding that those consignees were fictitious or non-existent. No evidence established abetment by Sharfuddin Khan in the imports made in their names, and the finding that he acted as a conduit was unsupported by material on record.

Conclusion: The penalty imposed on Sharfuddin Khan in the remaining cases was set aside.

Final Conclusion: The decision sustained confiscation and penalty only in the cases of the fire arms imported in the names of Sharfuddin Khan and Quresha Begam, while deleting Sharfuddin Khan's liability to penalty for the other imports made in the names of different consignees.

Ratio Decidendi: Penalty for unauthorised import cannot be imposed on a person unless his role as importer or abettor is established by evidence, and confiscation with redemption may be sustained where the consignee lacks the requisite import permissions.

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