Confiscation of gold by ED illegal: Delhi high court
Justice S Muralidhar, in his recent order, gave relief to Gauri Shanker from whose business premises the Enforcement Directorate seized 6 kg of gold alongwith cash of Rs1,49,000 in July 2005.
Terming the confiscation of six kg of gold from the office premises of a businesswoman a violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), the Delhi high court has directed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to return the gold to its owner.
Justice S Muralidhar, in his recent order, gave relief to Gauri Shanker from whose business premises ED seized 6 kg of gold alongwith cash of Rs1,49,000 in July 2005.
Shanker approached the high court after she made several representations before various authorities, but failed to get relief.
“ED and the Income Tax (I-T) department do not have a valid explanation for continuing to detain the 6 kg gold bars and cash seized from the business premises of the petitioner. ED itself had admitted before this court that there was no basis for the seizure of gold. So the writ petition has been admitted and a direction issued to the I-T department to immediately release the gold and cash,” Shanker said.According to the petitioner, the seizure of cash was illegal since section 3 of the FEMA act permits seizure only of foreign exchange.
Taking a serious note of the time lapse on behalf of ED and the I-T department the court said, “The departments have miserably failed to show even the legal basis on which the gold and cash could be detained for over five years without even a show cause notice being issued to the person in question.”
“The departments admittedly submitted that there was no legal justification. The case was simply referred to the I-T department for further action, nearly four years after the seizure,” the court observed.