Form No.J(2) CALCUTTA HIGH COURT IN THE CIRCUIT BENCH AT JALPAIGURI APPELLATE SIDE Present : The Hon’ble Justice Raja Basu Chowdhury WPA 1794 of 2026 M/s Rimpi Traders Versus The Union of India & Ors. For the petitioner : Mr. Pulkit Verma Ms. Pooja Sah Mr. A.R.Chowdhury For the Customs : Mr. Ratan Banik Heard on : 02.09.2026 Judgment on : 02.09.2026 Raja Basu Chowdhury, J (Oral): 1. Affidavit of service filed in Court today is retained with the record. 2. Records reveal that the Alipurduar Customs Preventive Unit had intercepted the petitioner’s goods vehicle carrying 17500 kgs of dry areca nuts believed to be of foreign origin on 29th March 2026. The petitioner had since made an application for provisional release of the goods under Section 110 A of the Customs Act, 1962 (hereinafter referred to as the said Act). Since, such application was kept pending, the petitioner had approached this Court by filing a writ petition which was registered WPA 844 of 2026. 3. By order dated 29th July 2026 a Coordinate Bench of this Court was, inter alia, pleased to dispose of the writ petition by directing the Joint Commissioner of Customs (Preventive Division) to consider the application filed by the petitioner on 1st April 2026 under Section 110A of the said Act and to dispose of the same by passing a 2 WPA 1794 of 2026 reasoned order in accordance with law. Though, the order dated 7th August 2026 has been passed under Section 110A, Mr. Verma, learned advocate appearing for the petitioner by drawing attention of this Court to the above order would submit that the Joint Commissioner of Customs had relied on the reports prepared by the National Food Laboratory, FSSAI, Kolkata, the report of the Arecanut Research and Development Foundation (R), Karnataka and the other two reports, the above reports had not been supplied. 4. Learned advocate appearing for the petitioner submits that failure to supply the above reports constitutes violation of principles of natural justice. Accordingly, he submits that the impugned order cannot be sustained and the matter may be remanded back with a direction to disclose the reports. 5. Mr. Banik, learned advocate appearing on behalf of the Customs authorities would, however, submit that the order passed under Section 110A of the said Act is an appealable order under Section 128 of the said Act. According to him, the writ petition ought not to be entertained on the ground of alternative remedy. 6. In course of hearing, while responding to a query of this Court as regards the willingness of the department to share the reports, Mr. Banik had shared the report prepared by Arecanut Research and Development Foundation (R), Karnataka which has tested the samples and have retuned a finding that the same mostly resembles areca nuts of Myanmar and the quality is bad and as much as 26.7 per cent of nuts are infested with moulds inside. The aforesaid document has been shared with the learned advocate appearing for the petitioner 7. Having heard the learned advocates appearing for the respective parties and though, Mr. Verma would insist that the authority should take another view from any other independent testing agency, I am of the view that there is no scope at this stage having regard to the above disclosure to remand the matter especially when an appellate forum is available. 3 WPA 1794 of 2026 8. Accordingly the writ petition is not entertained on the ground of alternative remedy. However, having regard to the submissions made by Mr. Verma and in the event the petitioner prefers an appeal before the appellate authority within 4 weeks from date, the appellate authority shall hear out the appeal on merits. It is made clear that if any application is made by the petitioner, praying for having the areca nuts tested by any other independent agency, such application shall duly be considered by the appropriate authority in accordance with law and shall take a final decision only after the report thereto is circulated to the petitioner. 9. I am also of the view, in the event an appeal is filed, considering the condition of areca nuts, the appellate authority shall hear out and disposed of the appeal on an expeditious basis, preferably within a period of 10 working days from the date of receipt of the report by the appellate authority. 10. The respondents are also directed to supply the reports relied by the respondents to the petitioner within one week from the date of communication of this order. 11. With the above observation and direction, the writ petition is disposed of. 12. All parties shall act on the basis of a server copy of this order duly downloaded from this Court’s official website. (Raja Basu Chowdhury, J.) Saswata A.R.(Court)