Customs Act,1962
Act No : 52
Section :
Offences to be tried summarily.
138.Offences to be tried summarily. Notwithstanding anything contained in the 3Code of Criminal procedure, 1898 (5 of 1898), an offence under this Chapter other than an offence punishable 4[un- der clause (i) of sub-section (1) of section 135 or under sub-section (2) of that section ] may be tried summarily by a magistrate. 5[138A. (1) In any prosecution for an offence under this Act which requires a culpable mental state on the part of the accused, the court shall presume the existence of such mental state but it shall be a defence for the accused to prove the fact that he had no such mental state with respect to the act charged as an offence in that prosecution. Explanation.-In this section, "culpable mental state" includes intention, motive, knowledge of a fact and belief in, or reason to believe, a fact. (2)For the purposes of this section, a fact is said to be proved only when the court believes it to exist beyond reasonable doubt and not merely when its existence is established Preponderance of probability 138B.Relevancy of statements under certain circumstances. (1) A statement made and signed by a person before any gazetted officer of customs during the course of any inquiry or proceeding under this Act shall be relevant, for the purpose of proving, in any prosecution for an offence under this Act, the truth of the facts which it contains,- (a)when the person who made the statement is dead or cannot be found, or is incapable of giving evidence, or is kept out of the way by the adverse party, or whose presence cannot be obtained without an amount of delay or expense which, under the circumstances of the case, the court considers unreasonable; or (b) when the person who made the statement is examined as a witness in the case before the court and the court is of opinion that, having regard to the circumstances of the case, the statement should be admitted in evidence in the interests of justice. (2)The provisions of sub-section (1) shall, so far as may be, apply, in relation to any proceeding under this Act, other than a proceeding before a court, as they apply in relation to a proceeding court.] 6[138C.Admissibility of micro films,fascimile copies of documents and computer printouts as documents and as evidence. (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in any other time being in force,- (a) a micro film of a document or the reproduction of the image or images embodied in such micro film (whether enlarged or not) ; or 1. Subs. by Act 22 of 1995, s. 50, for "Collector of Customs". 2. Subs. by s. 50, ibid for "Assistant Collector of Customs". 3. See now the Code of Crimianl Procedure, 1973 (Act 2 of 1974). 4. Subs. by Act 36 of 1973, s. 8, for "under clause (i) of section 135". 5. Ss. 138A and 138B ins. by s. 9, ibid. 6. Ins. by Act 29 of 1988, s. 6(w.e.f. 1-7-1988). (b) a facsimile copy of a document; or (c) a statement contained in a document and included in a printed material produced by a computer (hereinafter referred to as a "computer print out"), if the conditions mentioned in sub-section (2) and the other provisions contained in this section are satisfied in relation to the statement and the computer in question, shall be deemed to be also a document for the purposes of this Act and the rules made thereunder and shall be admissible in any proceedings thereunder, without further proof or production of the original, '-as evidence of any contents of the original or of any fact stated therein of which direct evidence would be admissible. (2) The conditions referred to in sub-section (1) in respect of a computer print out shall be the following, namely: - (a) the computer print out containing the statement was Produced by the computer during the period over which. the computer was used regularly to store or process information for the Purposes of any activities regularly carried on over that period by the person having lawful control over the use of the computer; (b) during the said period, there was regularly supplied to the computer in the ordinary course of the said activities, information of the kind contained in the statement or of the kind from which the information so contained is derived; (c) throughout the material part of the said period, the computer was operating properly or, if not, then any respect in which it was not operating properly or was out of operation during that part of that period was not such as to affect the production of the document or the accuracy of the contents; and (d) the information contained in the statement reproduces or is derived from information supplied to the computer in the ordinary course of the said activities. (3) Where over any period, the function of storing or processing information for the purposes of any activities regularly carried on over that period as mentioned in clause (a) of sub-section (2) was regularly Performed by computers, whether- (a) by a combination of computers, operating over that period; or (b) by different Computers operating in succession over that period; or (c) by different combinations of computers operating in succession over that period; or (d) in any other manner involving the successive operation over that period, in whatever order, of one or more computers and one or more combinations of computers, all the computers used for that purpose during that period shall be treated for the purposes of this section as constituting a single com- puter; and references in this section to a computer shall be construed accordingly. (4) In any proceedings under this Act and the rules made there- under where it is desired to give a statement in evidence by virtue of this section, a certificate doing any of the following things, that is to say,- (a) identifying the document containing the statement and describing the manner in which it was produced; (b) giving such particulars of any device involved in the production of that document as may be appropriate for the purpose of showing that the document was produced by a computer; (c) dealing with any of the matters to which the conditions mentioned in sub-section (2) relate, and purporting to be signed by a person occupying a responsible official position in relation to the operation of the relevant device or the management of the relevant activities (whichever is appropriate) shall be evidence of any matter stated in the certificate; and for the purposes of this sub-section it shall be sufficient for a matter to be stated to the best of the knowledge and belief of the person stating it. (5) For the purposes of this section,- (a) information shall be taken to be supplied to a computer if it is supplied thereto in any appropriate form and whether it is so supplied directly or (with or without human intervention) by means of any appropriate equipment; (b) whether in the, course of activities carried on by any official, information is supplied with a view to its being, stored or processed for the purposes of those activities by a computer operated otherwise than in the course of those activities, that information, if duly supplied to that computer, shall be taken to be supplied to it in the course of those activities; (c) a document shall be taken to have been produced by a computer whether it was produced by it directly or (with or without human intervention) by means of any appropriate equipment. Explanation.-For the purposes of this section,- (a) "computer" -means any device that receives, stores and processes data, applying stipulated processes to the information and supplying results of these processes; and (b) any reference to information being derived from other information shall be a reference to its being derived therefrom by calculation, comparison or any other process.]
