Supreme Court restores DRI officers’ powers to recover dues under Customs Act

In 2021, a three-judge bench headed by then CJI Sharad Bobde had held that for a DRI officer to exercise the functions of a Customs officer, the Centre must specifically exercise its power to entrust such functions on “other officers” under Section 6 of the Customs Act.

“Subject to the observations made in this judgment, the officers of DRI, Commissionerates of Customs (Preventive), Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence and Commissionerates of Central Excise and other similarly-situated officers are proper officers for the purposes of Section 28 and are competent to issue show cause notice thereunder,” the bench held on Thursday.

“The petition seeking a review of (the) Canon India (judgment) is allowed for the following reasons…. In other words, the judgment in Canon India was rendered without looking into the circular and notification, therefore seriously affecting the correctness of the same. The decision in Canon India failed to look into the statutory scheme,” it said.

The bench noted that in 1999, a circular was issued by the CBEC, New Delhi that empowered officers of the DRI to issue notices under Section 28 of the Customs Act. The court also found that a notification was issued in 2011 which stated that DRI officers could perform the functions of a “proper officer” under the Customs Act.

The court ordered that all pending cases relating to show-cause notices under Section 28 of the Customs Act must now be decided according to this verdict.