New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India has upheld the conviction of the accused in a four-decade-old smuggling case involving foreign-made wristwatches, affirming that voluntary confessional statements recorded under Section 108 of the Customs Act, 1962 constitute valid and substantive evidence capable of sustaining a conviction. However, taking into account the advanced age of the surviving appellants, the prolonged pendency of the proceedings, and the period of incarceration already undergone, the Bench reduced the sentence to the period already served.
The case traces its origins to April 30, 1985, when Customs officers at Mandvi, Gujarat, acting on secret intelligence, proceeded to a site near a fisherman’s jetty opposite the Mandvi Gram Panchayat Rest House. Upon excavating two pits on a newly laid road, they recovered two jute sacks containing ten and seventeen packets, respectively. On examination at the Customs House, the sacks were found to contain 777 foreign-made wristwatches of brands including Seiko, Citizen, and Ricoh, along with 879 wristwatch straps, valued at approximately ₹2,22,190.
Subsequent investigation revealed that the goods had been smuggled into India aboard the ship Safina-Tul-Firdaus in the first week of February 1985. Accused Nos. 1 and 2 were identified as the owners of the ship, while Accused No. 3 was its captain. Other accused persons were alleged to have participated in concealing, storing, transporting, selling, or facilitating the disposal of the smuggled goods. A criminal complaint was filed on January 19, 1987, after obtaining sanction from the Collector of Customs, Ahmedabad, against 21 accused persons for offences punishable under Section 135 of the Customs Act, 1962.
The learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bhuj-Kachchh, by judgment dated March 26, 2003, in Criminal Case No. 566 of 1987, convicted Accused Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 11 while acquitting the remaining accused. Each convicted person was sentenced to three years’ rigorous imprisonment along with a fine of ₹2,000, with a default stipulation of eight months’ rigorous imprisonment.
The convicted accused preferred appeals before the Additional Sessions Judge, Bhuj, which were dismissed on May 21, 2005. Criminal revision applications were thereafter filed before the Gujarat High Court, which were similarly dismissed by a common judgment dated December 21, 2010, affirming the conviction under Section 135(1)(b)(i) of the Customs Act, 1962.
The appellants then approached the Supreme Court by way of special leave petitions.
Counsel for one of the appellants argued that the conviction was based solely on the confessional statement of one Hussein Mamad Bhadala recorded under Section 108 of the Customs Act, and that in the absence of independent substantive or corroborative evidence, such sole reliance was legally unsustainable. It was additionally submitted that the said witness had been subjected to severe custodial torture during the investigation and had subsequently succumbed to his injuries, with an FIR being registered against the concerned Customs officials for offences including culpable homicide.
Senior counsel for the other appellants pointed out that two of the accused — Aamad Alimamad Paleja and Ismail Alimamad Paleja — had passed away during the pendency of the appeals. He further urged that the surviving appellants were now of advanced age and had already undergone custody of nearly one year, which exceeded the statutory minimum sentence of six months prescribed under the proviso to Section 135(1)(b)(i) as it then stood. It was accordingly submitted that the sentence deserved to be reduced to the period already undergone.
The Additional Solicitor General, opposing the submissions, urged that, given the scale of the smuggling operation, no leniency was warranted in the matter of sentence.
A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, after considering the submissions and examining the material on record, affirmed the findings of guilt concurrently recorded by the trial court, the appellate court, and the High Court, holding that they did not suffer from perversity, illegality, or manifest error warranting interference under Article 136 of the Constitution.
On the question of admissibility of confessional statements under Section 108, the Court agreed with the High Court’s reasoning that such statements, if voluntary, are substantive pieces of evidence and do not attract the bar under Sections 24, 30, or 34 of the Indian Evidence Act. Placing reliance on the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling in K.I. Pavunny v. Assistant Collector (HQ), Central Excise Collectorate, Cochin [(1997) 3 SCC 721], the Court held that such statements had led to further discovery of contraband and money, documented through panchnamas and corroborated by the testimony of Customs officers, thereby constituting independent corroborative evidence under Sections 6, 10, and 11 of the Evidence Act.
However, on the question of sentence, the Court took note of the totality of circumstances — the incident being nearly four decades old, the custodial period of approximately one year already undergone by the appellants exceeding the statutory minimum of six months, the prolonged pendency of proceedings, the advanced age of the surviving appellants, and the fact that conscious possession of the smuggled goods was not directly attributed to them.
Holding that further incarceration would be unduly harsh and would not subserve the ends of justice, the Court reduced the sentence to the period already undergone, while affirming the conviction.
Since the appellants were on bail, the Court directed that they need not surrender and discharged their bail bonds.
Case Title: Amad Noormamad Bakali v. The State of Gujarat & Ors.
