Page 168 - ELT_1st September 2020_Vol 373_Part 5

606 EXCISE LAW TIMES [ Vol. 373

requested the ladies to open the second bag. One of the ladies told the Cus-
toms officers that probably they did not know her identity and power. She
then informed about her location to somebody over the phone.
3. After sometime, some Police personnel from NACBI Airport Police Sta-
tion under Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate arrived at the Internation-
al Arrival Hall and informed that one of the lady passengers happened to
be wife of M.P. Shri Abhishek Banerjee and made request to release these
passengers immediately without any examination of their baggage. But
their requests were not adhered to and they were informed that until and
unless the examination of the baggages are over by the concerned officer,
the passengers would not be released. One lady Police Constable came to
the spot and informed the Customs officers that one of the lady passengers
was the wife of the nephew of the Chief Minister of West Bengal. During
this time, more Police officers came and asked the Customs officers to allow
both the ladies to go immediately, without checking their baggage, other-
wise they may face problems. However, despite this pressure, the second
suspected bag was opened at Counter No. 4 in which two sets of jewellery
(Kundan) were found.
4. Enquiries revealed that Flight TG-313 had landed at 12:40 A.M. on 16-3-
2019 and at about 01:50 A.M. on 16-3-2019, a phone call was received from
O.C. Airport Police Station on the mobile phone of Shri Jitendra Prasad,
APRO on duty (8789580789), after it was diverted from the land line of the
PRO Customs (033-2511 8053), enquiring if Ms. Rujira Naroola, said to be
wife of Shri Abhishek Banerjee, MP was detained by Customs and if so, she
should be released immediately. The matter was communicated immediate-
ly both to the Batch D.C., Shri D. Roy and to A.C., A.I.U. Shri S.K. Biswas.
Another phone call was received by the PRO Customs from the West Ben-
gal Police Protocol Cell location at the Airport with the same request and
the same disclosure of status of the said two lady passengers. The S.I. Air-
port P.S. along with one constable in uniform and one lady constable in civ-
il dress were physically present during the Customs examination and also
one A.S.I. in civil dress joined them and all of them were insisting repeated-
ly to release the said passenger and companion. They were interfering in
the discharge of duty by the Customs Officers and pressuring them to re-
lease the passengers.
5. In the meantime, it was found that both the passengers namely Ms. Ru-
jira Naroola said to be wife of MP. Sri Abhishek Banerjee and Ms. Menka
Gambhir were having Thai passports bearing Nos. AA563757 and
AA5263387 respectively. The two ladies finally left the Airport through the
Green Channel around 02:15 AM.
6. After the two passengers had left the Airport, another team of police
personnel came at around 03:00 A.M. and enquired about the names of the
officers on duty who were involved in intercepting the lady passengers and
examination of their baggage. The contingent of Police Officers kept on in-
creasing until the morning. Presence of a large number of Police personnel
was observed in around international Arrival Hall and information was
gathered that they had come to arrest the officers who had examined the
baggage of the aforesaid lady passengers. The Assistant Commissioner of
Customs briefed the Commissioner of Customs (Airport) Sri Manish Chan-
dra about the incident around 7 a.m. in the morning.
7. At about 11:30 hours, a meeting was convened by the Police personnel
at the Police Assistance Booth in between Airlines Ticket Counters of Air
India and Vistara inside Gate No. 3C at the Departure Area of NACBI,
Airport, Kolkata. The following Customs officers attended the meeting, as

EXCISE LAW TIMES  1st September 2020  168