Confiscation of gold jewellery lacked required procedural...

Confiscation of gold jewellery lacked required procedural safeguards and statutory notices, so the State held a duty to preserve seized property intact as a bailee pending final adjudication; failure to follow seizure, inventory and disposal provisions and omission of prescribed notices vitiated the confiscation, entitling the owner to return or compensation. Where re-export is ordered but goods are no longer available, the operative effect is payment of present market value rather than value at seizure. Arbitrary detention and non-compliance with due process breached property and reasonableness guarantees.

---