The petitioners are before this Court calling in question

registration of crime in Crime No.172 of 2019 on 16-07-2019 for

offences punishable under Sections 66C and 72A of the Information

Technology Act, 2000 and Sections 406, 420 and 34 of the IPC and

pending before the 1^st Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate,

Bangalore City.

2. Heard Sri P.Prasanna Kumar, learned counsel appearing for

the petitioners, Sri K.S.Abhijith, learned High Court Government

Pleader for respondent No.1 and Sri M.N.Kumar, learned Central

Government Standing Counsel appearing for respondent No.2.

3. Brief facts leading to the filing of the present petition, as

borne out from the records, are as follows:-

1^st petitioner - M/s ib Track Solutions Private Limited

(8Company9 for short), a Company registered under the Companies

Act, 1956 is associated with procuring and supplying of e-seals with

Radio Frequency Identification (8RFID9) technology for exporters

from India. The 2^nd petitioner is the Director of the 1^st

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petitioner/Company. The 1^st petitioner/Company claims to have

procured unique technology which was the first of its kind for the

purpose of exporting cargo with tamperproof seals. The said seals

were made to maintain highest level of safety and security. The

seals were manufactured by M/s Leghorn Group SRL, Italy and the

Company is the authorized distributor of the said seals and the

seals are claimed to have been certified by the International

Standard Organization (ISO) as high-grade e-seal for containers

and M/s Leghorn Group is said to be the pioneer in the field of

manufacture and supply of e-seals across the world. RFID is an

automatic identification mechanism which is attached to a container

and can be accurately read by a handheld device that is operated

by a Customs Officer at the relevant port gate.

4. The Union Government intended to implement electronic

sealing of cargo by exporters under a self-sealing procedure and in

pursuance of the same by circulars called upon various vendors for

supply of such seals. The said circulars sought for supply of RFID

tamperproof onetime bolt seal. The circulars called upon vendors to

supply e-seals with the technology support such as mobile or web

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applications in order to reduce use of paper. The Company

participated in the vendor approval process and custom officials

were responsible with regard to verification of details of shipping

and integrity of e-seals. The Company claims to have empanelled

as an authorized vendor after detailed scrutiny and due diligence.

5. In terms of the procedure so stipulated in the Circulars, an

exporter who intends to ship goods has to mandatorily place the

goods sought to be exported into the container and lock the said

container with e-seals provided by the authorized vendor. Upon

locking with e-seal, the exporter must feed shipping details into the

website of the authorized vendor Company. Once the vehicle with

the containers along with e-seals reaches the port gate, the Custom

Officer must physically check the serial number of the RFID e-seal

and cross-verify with other details. If the serial numbers match,

the Customs Officer must read the e-seal to examine whether the

same has been tampered with, through the application of the

vendor on the handheld device. This is the broad procedure for the

container to pass through the port gate after checking with e-seals.

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6. The Company claims to have been following all the

procedure laid down in the Circulars. The Neptune e-seal which is

distributed by the Company was proved to be unbreakable without

physically breaking the stem of the said seal. It was alleged that on

certain occasions the seals though not tampered appeared to be

tampered and corrective measures were immediately taken. On

23-10-2018 the Directorate General of Analytics and Risk

Management, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs issued a

letter directing the Company not to sell RFID e-seals manufactured

by M/s Leghorn Group, Italy