A Division Bench of the Bombay High Court has recently set aside the undue denial of reward money to Jayashree Chandrakant Dhavre, the wife of Late Chandrakant Shivaram Dhavre, who in a major aid to the department had provided specific information to the office of the Marine and Preventive Wing of the Mumbai Commissionerate of Customs which led to seizure of smuggled goods.
The petitioner contended that the that reward which is given to the Informers as per the policy is
unjustifiably withheld.
On 9 April 1993 and thereafter in 1999, the Respondents disbursed an advance reward of Rs. 1 lakh and Rs. 2 lakhs, respectively, to the Informer, withholding the final reward.
The Petitioner’s husband Chandrakant had made a series of representations from 26 June 2006, 17 July 2006, 17 November 2006 and 28 March 2007 for release of final reward in respect of the information given on 21 March 1991. He also appealed to the Commissioner to do the needful at the earliest as he had lost his eye sight due to an accident in 1992. Mr. Chandrakant expired on 25 August 2010.
After the death of Chandrakant, the Petitioner, a widow, continued to send requests to release the final reward for her husband- Chandrakant in light of the policy, which fell into the deaf ears of the authorities.
On further correspondence with the Respondents, the Petitioner did not receive any satisfactory reply except that the matter was under process. With the last communication received on 31 January 2019 yielding no result, the Petitioner filed the present petition.
The Bombay High Court Bench of Justices Abhay Ahuja and Nitin Jamdar heard Ashok Singh, the Counsel for the Petitioner and Dhananjay Deshmukh, the Counsel for the Respondents.
It was observed that, “It is also undisputed before us that an information was received by the Assistant Commissioner of Customs in 1991 which led to substantiate seizure of the smuggled goods.”
Furthermore, it was noted that, “Except for disputing the Informer’s identity, the Respondents have not positively stated that the interim reward was released to some other person and not the Petitioner’s husband- Chandrakant.”
“Once the deponent has accepted that reward at the interim stage was paid to Chandrakant and that the Petitioner has established that she is the legal heir of Chandrakant, then withholding the final reward is entirely arbitrary”, the Court observed and directed the the Respondents to treat the claim of the Petitioner’s husband – Chandrakant as eligible for the grant of final reward in respect of the concerned case and process the Petitioner’s claim as his legal heir.
However, the quantification of the reward amount was left to the Respondents-Authorities to be made as per the Policy within ten weeks and the amount so determined be paid to the Petitioner within twelve weeks from the date of judgment, 25.01.2023.
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