GUWAHATI: The Supreme Court of India has upheld the authority of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officers to issue show-cause notices and collect duties under the Customs Act, 1962. This decision clarifies that DRI officers qualify as "proper officers" under Section 28 of the Act, allowing them to proceed with a substantial backlog of tax recovery cases that were previously on hold.
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The judgment, passed by a bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, comes in response to a review petition filed by the Customs Department. The Department had contested a previous Supreme Court decision in Canon India Private Ltd. v. Commissioner of Customs, which had ruled that DRI officers were not authorised to issue show-cause notices under the Customs Act without specific assignment of duties by the Central Government.
This reversal of the Canon India ruling now enables the government to actively pursue over ₹20,000 crore worth of pending customs cases, with the Supreme Court providing direction on how current cases should proceed. High Courts will be required to align their adjudications with this new interpretation, and cases pending before the Supreme Court itself will follow the updated guidelines.
The decision restores DRI’s role as a principal enforcement agency in customs matters, a role that had been interrupted due to prior jurisdictional issues.
