High Court’s landmark verdict on car imports

The Bombay High Court has recently passed an order which will definitely help in the prevention of illegal imports of all-terrain vehicles, MUVs and superbikes into the country. The court has ordered and said that if any importer is a person who has been abroad constantly for a period of two years, then she or he must essentially be the owner of the vehicle. Recently, the high court passed the orders for the immediate seizing of a Toyota Cynos car that was imported in the year 2000. The vehicle was confiscated by the customs immediately but the same was released in the year 2004 by the customs appellate tribunal. The tribunal held that the importer does not have to necessarily be the owner. While the HC called this move of the tribunal as ‘‘absolutely perverse with no application of mind and contrary to public policy''.

According to the customs officials, the recent verdict given by the court will especially affect the Bollywood celebrities. The officials said that the illegal imports of big foreign cars is still going on. The new ruling has come down ten years after the public policy on import of restricted automobiles was executed by (DGFT) Director General of Foreign Trade during the period of April 2000. This policy allows the passenger jeeps/ cars, MUVs, other vehicles of the restricted category to be imported without having a licence on payment of complete customs duty by individuals who come to India for permanent settlement after 2 years' constant stay in abroad.

The recent judgment of the Bombay high court has been passed by a bench comprising the justices V C Daga and R M Sawant. The judgement comes after the case where the importer of a car (which was worth over Rs 4 lakh) was an illiterate carpenter from the village of Andhra Pradesh and was working in Dubai on the baisis of labour visa. The carpenter called Ganji Malliah said that he was neither the owner nor had he imported any car. He told that that 2 Telgu-speaking persons had offered him five thousand rupees for using his passport to import light bulbs. The labourer had come back to India in October 2000.