A.M. Khanwilkar, J.

1. This Petition, under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has been filed by the wife of the detenu Ajit Bapu Satam, who has been detained pursuant to the detention order passed by the Principal Secretary (Appeals and Security), Home Department, Government of Maharashtra, and Detaining Authority, dated 14th March, 2012, in exercise of powers under Section 3(1) of the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974 (hereinafter referred to as “the COFEPOSA Act” for short), with a view to prevent the detenu in future from smuggling goods.

2. The detenu was served with the grounds of detention, which advert to the continual criminal activities of the detenu necessitating issuance of detention order, with a view to prevent him from indulging into the smuggling activities in future. It is stated that on the basis of specific intelligence that a syndicate headed by the detenu along with Deepak Jare was engaged in smuggling of red sanders to Dubai, the offices of DRI intercepted three containers namely CLHU-8757522, BAXU-2594270 and BAXU-2643415 at Punjab Conware CFS, Nhava Sheva on 2nd September, 2011. The Containers were declared to contain 1883 Nos. of “Plastic Moulded Crates – Model No. 2001”, “White Guava Pulp” respectively, but, were found to contain huge quantity of red sanders. The red sanders recovered from the three containers, totally valued `5.03 crores, was seized under the provisions of the Customs Act, 1962.

3. It is further stated that simultaneous search operations were carried out at the stated places, allegedly used as residence and also office premises of the detenu and his companions including the permanent room booked at Hotel Taj Lands end at Room No. 1902, Bandstand, Bandra (W) 400050. The searches led to seizure of unaccounted cash amount of aggregate `2,65,70,000/-, Skoda Fabia Car, five high end cars i.e. two Bentley and three Mercedez, laptops, computer CPU, 14 mobile phones and other incriminating items such as plain bottle seals without any markings, broken bottle seals, metal dies containing insignia of various Customs and Central Excise Officers, packets of metal fonts, stamping foils, numeric dies, etc.

4. The Detaining Authority then referred to the gist of the statements recorded under section 108 of the Customs Act of detenu and his companions Deepak Jare, Prakash Shewale, proprietor of Govind Enterprise, Bhaskar Tate, Pradeep Kanur, Director of M/s. Excel Industries, Vijay Jayawant Kowley, Managind Director of M/s. Kowley Polymers Pvt. Ltd., Nitin Choughle, Alex Thomas Fernandas @ Anand, Pramod Kumar Singh, Sushyant singh, Suresh Singh, Shivanand Singh, the Petitioner Maya Ajit Satam etc. and other 10 persons i.e. Jayesh Natwarlal Panchal, Lalchand Choudhury, Ram Singh, Jairaj @ Saleem, Mehabub Allauddin Shaikh, Parshram Ambi, Rajkumar Bbasappa Kumbhar, Rajesh Bhupal Rajput, Mohammed Jalaudin and Aadil abid Tapia, indicating complicity of the persons involved in the smuggling activities including the detenu himself.

5. On the basis of the material placed before the Detaining Authority, subjective satisfaction was formed by the Detaining Authority. We deem it apposite to reproduce the relevant extract of the grounds of detention, which reads thus:

“21. You are the kingpin of the organized syndicate which indulges in smuggling of red sanders by using forged bottles seals of various Central Excise offices and Shipping Lines used for sealing the export containers. Red sanders is an endangered species and the same is covered under convention of International trade of endangered species of wild fauna and flora (CITES). Export of red sanders is prohibited under EXIM policy. You entered in to a conspiracy with Deepak Jare for smuggling red sanders to Dubai based buyers by replacing the original export consignments with red sanders and sealing the export containers with duplicate seals. You are the financer of the whole operation and u