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TMI Blog1993 (9) TMI 185X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ty as prescribed in Appendix B under Rule 5 of Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules, 1955 and were not, therefore, permissible under Section 5 of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1954 read with Section 11 of the Customs Act. There is no dispute that the licence produced by the appellants was as it is valid for the import of the cloves. 2. The learned Senior Advocate for the appellants Shri Habibullah Badsha pleaded that the appellants had imported the goods from a reputed supplier and the goods were covered by Phytosanitary Certificate, which is considered adequate in the international trade, for importation of the cloves. He pleaded on tests the goods were found to contain extraneous matter including stalk, stem, peduncles and m ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e stream of the human consumption but are used for industrial purposes, there could be no objection to the importation of the goods against the licence produced. He pleaded that they have a ready customer in Coimbatore, who is a producer of clove oil and the appellants would ensure, if their plea for use of the cloves for industrial purposes is allowed, that the goods are used for that purpose and the authorities could bind them to produce evidence in this regard and place any other conditions for ensuring that these cloves are used for the said purposes. He pleaded that precious foreign exchange should not be allowed to be wasted when the goods can be used otherwise. He in this connection referred us to letter dated 7-7-1993 addressed by M ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... lowed to go in the stream for human consumption. However, we find there are some commodities like cloves which also have alternative uses and, if it can be ensured that the goods can be put to alternative use in respect of which the provisions of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act cannot apply, there can be no objection in principle to release such goods. In the present case, we find, the goods are covered by a licence issued by a competent authority and there is no plea that for the cloves to be used for industrial purpose the provisions of Prevention of Food Adulteration Act would apply in that contingency also. All that has to be ensured is, therefore, that the goods are used for the industrial purpose and for that the appellants ca ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ndition in which these have been imported, the authorities should also have examined before resorting to the confiscation of the goods as to whether by a simple physical process of sieving etc. the extraneous matter could be removed and whether the cloves emerging after this process would pass the muster of the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act. There are goods like in the case of rags where serviceable garments get imported the Customs authorities release the goods after slitting the same and reducing them to the standard of rags. Likewise for commodities like cloves in the present case, this course could also have been considered by the authorities. Be that as it may, since in the present case, as we have held above, the goods could be ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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