ORDER
Jyoti Balasundaram, Member (J)
1. The brief facts of the case are that the appellant herein was apprehended on 12-5-1993 in the Departure Hall of IGI Airport when he was about to leave for Dubai by Emirates flight. The examination of his checked-in-baggage resulted in recovery of foreign and Indian currencies equivalent to Rs. 8.87 lakhs. The appellant admitted recovery of the currencies and stated that he had arranged for the currencies from some brokers and that he was taking the money to Dubai for personal use, shopping in Dubai.
2. After completion of investigation, show cause notice was issued and the Adjudicating authority passed an order confiscating the entire currencies and imposing personal penalty of Rs. 2 lakh on the appellant, rejecting his defence that the seized currency belonged to Mr. and Mrs. P.K. Goel on the ground that this defence was an after thought. The lower Appellate authority upheld the order of the Adjudicating authority; hence this appeal.
3. None appeared for the appellant when the case was called in spite of to-day’s date having been given in the presence of Counsel’s clerk; hence we have heard the learned DR and pass the following order.
4. There is a clear admission by the appellant when his statement was recorded for the first time that he had arranged for the currency and was taking it to Dubai for personal use in Dubai. The subsequent defence in the reply to the show cause notice that the currency recovered from him belonged to Mrs. and Mr. P.K. Goel, has been correctly disregarded as an after-thought. The appellant is in the export business of gold jeweller and it does not stand to reason that he would have given a statement under duress or threat and his statement at the earliest point of time therefore, forms a valuable piece of evidence which can be taken into account for the purpose of holding that an offence has been committed by him. The confiscation and penalty are therefore, sustainable. However, while upholding the confiscation of currency, in the totality of the facts and circumstances of the case, we reduce the penalty to Rs. 75,000/-. The appeal is thus partly allowed.