JUDGMENT

S. Ratnavel Pandian, J. The salient and indeed substantial legal question which looms for determination in this appeal may be formulated as follows:

Whether a Magistrate before whom a person arrested under sub-Section (1) of Section 35 of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act of 1973 which is in pari materia with sub-Section (1) of Section 104 of the Customs Act of 1962, is produced under sub-section (2) of Section 35 of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, has jurisdiction to authorise detention of that person under Section 167(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure?

2. As a preclude to the judgment, we would like to state that though the appellant in the present case has been arrested under sub-section (1) of Section 35 of Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as the 'FERA') and taken to the Magistrate under sub-section (2) thereof, we while disposing the legal questions posed for determination, are inclined to deal with the corresponding provisions under the Customs Act also for the reasons - (i) that the scheme for both the FERA and the Customs Act is more or less the same; (ii) the provisions relating to the arrest and production of the arrestee