- (1.) HEARD Ms. Arvind Srivastava, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Raj Kumar Singh, the learned Central Government Counsel for the opposite parties.
(2.) THE petitioner being aggrieved by the order dated 1-12-2005 passed by the Central Excise Commissionerate, Allahabad has filed the instant writ petition. THE brief facts of the case are that in a raid which was conducted on 12-9-1975 at the house of late Ram Chander at Faizabad by the Customs & Excise Officials, ornaments and primary gold weighing 296 grams were seized under the Gold (Control) Act, 1968 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) on the suspicion that it is of foreign origin. Sri Laxman Dayal and others earlier filed a writ petition in this Court which was registered as Writ Petition No. 1833 (M/s) of 1980. The said writ petition was partly allowed by the judgment and order dated 6-4-2005 and the impugned orders dated 21-2-1976, 31-8-3 1979,31-1-1979 and 10-4-1980 were quashed by this Court and the respondents were di rected to provide the benefits of Section 73 of the Act to the petitioner with respect to 296 grams of primary gold. Learned counsel for the petitioner sub mits that by the impugned order dated 1-12-2005, the respondents are demanding Rs. 2,23,480/- from the petitioner as redemption fine for redeeming 296 grams of primary gold although as per the provisions of Section 73 read with Section 2 (v) of the Act, the fine can be charged only on the basis of the market price which was prevalent at the time of sei zure and not the current price.
(3.) THE learned Central Government Coun sel appearing on behalf of the respondents submits that the petitioner has an alternative remedy before the Customs, Excise & Ser vice Tax Appellate Tribunal. He further sub mits that there is no illegality in the impugned order dated 1-12-2005. We have considered the submissions made by the learned counsel for the parties and gone through the record.;