The requirement of reasonable belief under Section 19-D of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947, is justiciable and the officer concerned must prove by giving satisfactory evidence of objective facts that the condition precedent has been fulfilled.

SABYASACHI MUKHARJI, J.

( 1 ) THE petitioner is a public limited company under the Companies Act, 1956. The petitioner owns two jute mills, i. e. Albion Jute Mills and Lothian Jute Mills at Budge Budge in West Bengal and a factory at Varanashi in Uttar Pradesh known as Sahu Chemicals and Fertilisers. Messrs. Sahu Jain Ltd. , was at all material times the managing agents of the petitioner, On Monday, the 13th May, 1961, there was a search at the premises No. 11, Clive Row, Calcutta and the search continued on the 14th and 15th May, 1968 and certain documents and papers were seized. The propriety of the search and the validity of the seizure are the subject-matters of challenge in this application under Article 226 of the Constitution. The search was conducted by virtue of an authorisation issued by the respondent No. 1 Assistant Director, Enforcement Directorate, Ministry of Finance under Section 19-D of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947. As a result of that search certain documents were seized. I am told that after the seizure, there was an adjudication proceeding under Section 19-E of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947, and there was an appeal preferred which is pending before the Appellate Board. In this application two main grounds were urged. The first ground was that the issue of authorisation lay the respondent No. 1 was illegal and the respondent No. 1 had no reason to believe that any documents including any books of account or foreign exchange correspondence relevant to the proceeding under the Act were secreted at the premises when the search was conducted. Secondly, it was urged that there has been non-compliance with the requirements of Sub-section (2) of Section 19-D of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947. It is, therefore, necessary to refer to the provisions of Section 19-D of the Act. The said section provides as follows:"19-D. Power to search premises.- (1) If an officer of Enforcement, not below the rank of Assistant Director of Enforcement, has reason to believe that any documents which in his opinion will be useful for or relevant to any proceeding under this Act, are secreted in any place he may authorise any officer of Enforcement to search for and seize or may himself search for and seize such documents. (2) The provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898, relating to searches shall, so far as may be, apply to searches under this section subject to the modification that Sub-section (5) of Section 165 of the said Code shall have effect as if for the word 'magistrate', wherever it occurs, the wards 'director of Enforcement or other officer exercising his powers', were substituted. "

( 2 ) IN the affidavit-in-opposition in answer to this rule nisi issued in this case, the respondent No. 1 has given reasons for the authorisation. After denying the allegations made on behalf of the petitioner, he has craved leave to refer to the letter of the Reserve Bank of India dated 3rd January, 1966 to the Deputy Director, Enforcement Directorate and to the complaint filed by the City Trade and Industry Ltd. , New York, against the petitioner company in the Supreme Court, New York. The copies of the aforesaid documents have been annexed to the said affidavit-in-opposition. He has further stated that limited examination of the seized documents had 'brought to light documents which appear to be useful or relevant and it appeared that the export of jute carpet backing cloth of the approximate value of 30 million U. S. Dollors or more were made by New Central Jute Mills Co. Ltd. on consignment basis to City Trade and Industries Ltd. of U. S. A. who were their agents and not on the basis of outright sale from one principal to another and the proceeds of re-sale price of the goods in U. S. A. and Canada were much higher than the value of the exports declared by the petitioner for the purpose of repatriation in the relevant invoices and G. R. I, forms. In paragraph 14 of the affidavit-in-opposition

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