A Single Bench of Calcutta High Court has held that mere expiry of the time period of six months prescribed under Section 18 of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973 while rejecting the argument of a resigned director of M/s Grapco Industries Limited, in the alleged contravention of provisions of Sections 18 (2) and 18 (3) of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973.
The trial court had taken cognizance of the offence under Section 56 of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act and issued process against the accused persons including the petitioner.
The petitioner approached the Calcutta High Court under Section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 with the present revision petition after rejection of his prayer for discharge.
Sandipan Ganguly and Bani Ghosh submitted that the petitioner held only an honorary post in the company, never accepted any salary or remuneration there and was never associated in any way with the day to day affairs of the said company.
Arjit Chakrabarty, appeared for the Directorate of Enforcement and submitted that the prima facie materials are available against the petitioner, he being a ‘Director’ of the company at the relevant point of time, though not at a time after expiry of six months period from the date of shipping consignments.
This contention, was rejected as a ‘Director’ would generally connote a person who may be in charge of and responsible to the company for conduct of its business. It was also observed that, Company’s records and more so the specific averments in the complaint show otherwise.
The Bench of Justice Rai Chattopadhyay observed that, “last day of the prescribed six months period is only the outer limit, that is the cut off date, within which the company or any responsible person holding office of the same should not refrain from doing as necessary to repatriate the sale proceeds of exported goods.”, in the issue of the repatriated exports.
It was subsequently observed that, the words finding place in section 18(1)(a) assume immense importance, particularly in the backdrop of the present case, in which the relevant time of ‘commission of the offence’ is in dispute.”
It was further observed that, a conjoint reading of section 18(1)(c) and 18(1)(a) would definitely propagate that the duty to get the sale proceeds of export to be repatriated does not merely arise after expiry of six months statutory period, but the last day of the sixth month from the date of export is only the outer limit and end of the timespan.
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