Customs authorities lack jurisdiction to adjudicate issues under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, making actions of confiscation and penalties under the Customs Act legally untenable.

PER: C J MATHEW

Don’t spend a dollar’s worth of time on a ten cent decision’ said Peter Turla and, while that, for all purposes, may well be the urging of the appellants with their submission that proceedings under customs law is extra-jurisdictional, we can hardly luxuriate in that simple a thesis to dispose off complexity wrought not just by extant law but also from the torturous contours of regulating the primary form of money. From the factual matrix on record, we perceive an elaborate tapestry woven by the investigation into foreign currency (equivalent of ₹ 81,01,421 comprising 50409 US$, 30745 € and 25030 £) intercepted by security operatives on 20^th August 2018 at the international departure terminal while screening Shri Amit Bali, one of the appellants herein and an employee of M/s Salt Experiences and Management Pvt Ltd, another of the appellants herein, as he was about to embark on a British Airways flight from IGI Airport, New Delhi.

2. It is a tapestry so ornate and striking that, leaving aside the legal warp, more than a mere glance is attracted. Apparently, at the behest of his company, he had been tasked with handling the travel, stay and business programme of another passenger on the same flight, Shri Pawan Kant Munjal, Chairman & Managing Director (CMD) of M/s Hero MotoCorp Ltd, which had a standing arrangement with M/s Salt Experience & Management Pvt Ltd for organizing travel and events outside India for promotion of automotive products to be billed ‘all inclusively’ in India; the contractual responsibility, obligating, inter alia, procurement of foreign currency to be carried as notes and other permitted instruments, had been ongoing for several years and not just for this client. As summarized in the impugned order, [order-in-appeal no. CC(A)/CUS/D-i/Airport/915-923/2025-26 dated 26th August 2025] of Commissioner of Customs (Appeals), New Delhi, in addition to seized notes and another ₹ 51,77,564 equivalent of foreign currency, purportedly of similar transaction of the past recorded as scribblings found on his person, currency equivalent of ₹ 27,89,23,327 had allegedly been carried by seven employees, [S/shri Mudit Agrawal, Amit Makker, Gautam Kumar, Vikram Bajaj and Ketan Kakkar] all noticees in the proceedings, including Shri Amit Bali and Shri Hemant Dahiya, Director in M/s Salt Enterprise & Management Pvt Ltd, over the years between 2014-15 and 2018-19, travel cards valued at ₹ 21,35,25,172 in the names of several employees that had been carried by Shri Bali in the past as also expending of currency equivalent of ₹ 3,72,64,700 recorded in a ‘pen-drive’ recovered from the office of M/s Salt Enterprise & Management Pvt Ltd that were not reflected in the accounts, were dealt with in the show cause notice for contravention bearing liability to confiscation on the back of having violated instructions of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on carrying of currency in notes and travel cards out of the country.

3. The seized currency was confiscated absolutely in proceedings initiated by notice under section 124 of Customs Act, 1962 , issued to the above as also to the aforesaid Shri Munjal and Shri Kumar Rajesh Raman, Chief Finance Officer (CFO) of M/s Salt Enterprise & Management Pvt Ltd, besides holding the alleged exports of the past, both from records as also from the ‘pen-drive’, to be liable to confi