KOCHI: With the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (Economic Offences) court granting bail to eight persons accused in the gold smuggling case registered by the Customs, the department is not likely to invoke the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act (COFEPOSA) against them any soon. According to sources in the Customs, the Act cannot be invoked at this stage due to some technical issues in connection with the probe being conducted by other agencies.
The accused were granted bail recently after the Customs failed to file a chargesheet in the case even after 60 days since the arrest was recorded. Though the department had prepared a proposal for COFEPOSA against the accused persons, it decided not to present the proposal before the screening board owing to technical issues. “One of the major issues is that the NIA has registered a parallel case under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in the same incident. The COFEPOSA committee will not entertain a proposal like this when the accused persons are already in detention under another central Act like the UAPA,” an officer said.
The Customs officials are hopeful that the accused may not be granted bail in the UAPA case. Meanwhile, the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court (Economic Offences) on Tuesday granted bail to prime accused Sandeep Nair, as the Customs had failed to file a chargesheet against him too in a timely manner.
I-T to quiz accused persons in jail
Kochi: The Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (Economic Offenses) court in Kochi on Tuesday permitted the Income-Tax (I-T) Department to question nine accused persons in the smuggling of gold via the diplomatic channel case. After NIA, ED, and Customs, I-T has registered a case under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transaction Act. I-T has received permission to quiz Sandeep Nair, Hamjad Ali, Jalal A M, Muhammad Shafi, Sarith P S, Swapna Suresh, Muhammad Anwar, Said Alavi, and Rameez K T in jail. The accused persons are lodged at the Viyyur Central Jail. I-T Investigation Unit, Thiruvananthapuram, is investigating the case.