Files missing in Customs House. Squabbling between customs and police across two states. Legal hurdles that stretched to the Supreme Court. With all these obstacles, the chase took two years.But finally on Sunday, the man wanted in a multi-crore customs fraud, Taufiq Haji Gaffar, was found in the most unexpected of places: his home in Adajan Patia, Surat.Gaffar, wanted since August 2001 for allegedly cheating the government of over Rs 27 crore through an export-promotion scheme, is now lodged in Baroda Central prison, Surat Police Commissioner V.K. Gupta said.Investigated for his role in diverting imports through an ingenious process Gaffar has been detained under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Act (COFEPOSA).There’s been a lot of activity on the Gaffar case in the last few days. In June, Surat police returned the detention order to Mumbai customs because they were apparently irked with the customs who blamed them for not finding the man.However, Mumbai customs sent the order back to Surat in the first week of July. The Surat police, which claimed that Gaffar had gone missing when the detention order was issued two years ago, then suddenly found him at home on Sunday morning.Meanwhile, in the two years while Mumbai Customs and Surat police were squabbling, Gaffar had moved four high courts for the COFEPOSA order to be quashed to prevent it from being served; the case now lies in the Supreme Court. With his wife, Astana Taufiq, the petitioner, the Delhi HC had stayed the detention, which the SC later vacated.Gaffar had also moved the Delhi High Court in October 2002. And without the order having been served on him, his counsel, Ram Jethmalani referred to the grounds of detention in his arguments. How did he learn of the grounds when the order was never served? The Indian Express asked Jethmalani by fax, but he has not replied.
