Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman handed over confiscated ancient and medieval period Antiquities/ Coins to Union Minister of State (IC) for Tourism & Culture, Shri Prahlad Singh Patel, in a ceremony held at North Block here today.

Union Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs, Shri Anurag Singh Thakur, Finance Secretary Dr Ajay Bhushan Pandey, CBIC Chairman Shri M. Ajit Kumar, Members of the Board, Senior Officers of Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs, Ministry of Culture and Archaeological Survey of India were present on the occasion.

The 40,282 confiscated coins belong to the Sultanate and Mughal era from the period 1206 to 1720 AD, Princely states such as Kushana, Yaudheya, Guptas, Pratihar, Cholas, Rajputs, Mughals, Marathas, Kashmir and also British India, French and certain Australian coins from the period 1800-1900 AD. The confiscated items also cover 18 antique seal/stamp/religious emblem to be worn by the person having authority by Ruler to execute the Royal orders and 1 Silver Kamarband (waist band) to be worn by Royal/affluent family women.

The case was booked on 21.06.1994 at Delhi Airport when Customs intercepted two Foreign Nationals who were travelling to Hong Kong and seized a part of these antique coins, copper stamps/seals, silver kamarband (waistband) and other antiquities from them. In the follow up search, the remaining gold coins and articles were seized from a house in the city.

 After the completion of due process of law, Indian Customs requested Archaeological Survey of India to ascertain the value of these confiscated antiquities/articles and a committee was formed for valuing these items. The committee submitted its report in January/June 2020 and the value of 40,301 antique items was ascertained at ₹ 63.90 crore. Further, in terms of Para 17.9 of the Disposal Manual, 2019 issued by CBIC these confiscated items are being handed over to Archaeological Survey of India by the Department.

Confiscation and transfer of cultural property: customs seized antiquities and handed them to the archaeological authority under disposal rules. Customs seized ancient coins, seals, a silver kamarband and other antiquities after intercepting travellers in 1994; following searches and completion of processes, a committee of the Archaeological Survey of India valued over forty thousand items in 2020, and under the CBIC Disposal Manual, 2019 the Department transferred the confiscated antiquities to the Archaeological Survey of India for custody and management.