JUDGMENT

B.P. Jeevan Reddy, J.

1. With a view to provide for the forfeiture of illegally acquired properties of smugglers and foreign exchange manipulators, the Parliament enacted, in the year 1976, The Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act, 1976, being Act No. 13 of 1976. The Preamble to the Act sets out the objective which the Act seeks to achieve. It says:

"WHEREAS for the effective prevention of smuggling actlVll1es and foreign exchange manipulations which are having a deleterious effect on the national economy it is necessary to deprive persons engaged in such activities and manipulations of their ill-gotten gains:

AND WHEREAS such persons have been augmenting such gains by violations of wealth-tax, income-tax or other laws or by other means and have thereby been increasing their resources for operating in a clandestine manner;

AND WHEREAS such persons have in many cases been holding the properties acquired by them through such gains in the name of their relatives, associates and confidants."

2. It would equally be relevant to notice the Statement of Objects and Reasons appended to the Bill. The Statement sets out the mischief the Act was int