The Customs Preventive Division, Kozhikode, has submitted an affidavit in the High Court that its personnel are empowered to search and seize gold that is suspected to have been smuggled in the Customs area of the Calicut International Airport and that the police must alert them if they receive any tip-off regarding the same.
The power to search peopersons entering or leaving India is specifically conferred on Customs personnel. Police officers, on the suspicion that there is a commission of an offence relating to smuggling of contraband goods, should take the (suspected) persons before a gazetted officer of Customs or before a magistrate.
Instead of this, it has been noticed that the police are directly searching the passengers without warrant, without witnesses and without following allied procedures. It has also come to the notice of the Customs department that in many cases the police are melting/extracting the gold or assaying the gold, which is without any proper authority of law.
Such a course of action adopted by police officers is detrimentally affecting the adjudication of matters by the Customs department under the provisions of the Customs Act. The illegal search and seizure results in various anomalies, including the quantity of gold, the purity of gold, and the chain of custody. This may even result in the adjudications becoming futile, thereby incurring huge revenue loss to the exchequer, the Customs said in its affidavit.
Published – November 20, 2025 09:07 pm IST
