HOW EFFICIENT IS DIRECTORATE OF REVENUE INTELLIGENCE?

By Vijay Kumar

DRI is considered to be the premier investigating agency and lesser mortals are made to believe that the DRI sleuths are the best in the world. They have over the years created an awe-inspiring image for themselves. The taller than you, better than you impression they create is really impressive. Even when the officers go back to their parent departments after a stint in DRI they carry the halo and would like everyone to believe that they are a cut above the rest. But once in a while we are jolted out of this cosy feeling and the halo is shattered when we are told that DRI does not know how to prepare a mahazar, that their cases are weak and all the hype created at the time of seizure is not retained till the end of the case. Some twenty years ago DRI officers conducted a nation-wide raid in the offices of The Indian Express. The attack time was 9 a.m. And at 9 a.m, the raid started in all the places except in Delhi - the Headquarters of the DRI. Because the raiding party chief was not sure whether he had to carry a search warrant and finally when the warrant was produced, he was not sure whether a copy had to be given to the searched party or not. This minor aberration on the part of the premier investigating agency was of course forgiven and forgotten and hype continued. The DRI chief also figured in the cover page of that illustrious but now extinct 'Illustrated Weekly of India'. Perhaps the only revenue officer in India to have made it to the cover page of an immensely popular weekly.

The huge seizures, the good rewards and accolade the officers earn and the might of an investigator - have all made the agency look superhuman and every officer there a big 007. The agency was not meant for booking cases as seems to be the only goal now.

Why was DRI set up?

"the recognition of the need for a central organisation for gathering details of violations of economic laws in a continuous, organised manner so as to devise a strategy to deal with them and to alert the concerned Customs formations was felt as early as 1953. This resulted in the setting up of an organisation called the Central Revenue Intelligence Bureau in 1953.

And what is it now?

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence in its present form is a lean organisation charged essentially with the collection of intelligence, its analysis, collation, interpretation and dissemination on matters relating to violations of Customs laws, and to a lesser extent, anti-narcotics law"

These quotes are not from a critic of DRI but from DRI's own website http://dri.nic.in/General/aspGenesis.asp. Yes, DRI, the premier investigating agency has a website - which has not been updated for nearly two years. And from the site DDT could get some very interesting information.

From the table it can be seen that in the first year the recovery by the Commissionerates was marginally lower than DRI's but in the next year DRI's recovery rate was less than half of the All India Rate. DDT would have loved to give more data but the DRI web site does not have information beyond 2002.

DRI gets the rap from High Court.

A recent judgement of the Karnataka High Court is a classic case of the height of DRI growing incompetence. While you can see the full text of the judgement in INTELLIGENCE OFFICER, DRI Vs ARSHAD SALEEM KHAN (2004-TIOL-34-HC-KAR-NDPS), some observations of the High Court on the patchy investigation done by DRI will reveal the cracks in the edifice. The court sadly observed that a good case was lost because of DRI's incompetence. There was intelligence, there was seizure, there was arrest, but they only did not know how to take the case to the court!

Mahazar - learn from CBI.

It is common knowledge that most of the mahazars in DRI cases are written in DRI offices with panch witnesses secured after the seizure. In a case where some 40 gold bars were seized, the panch witness was an illiterate person who was working at the tea stall located opposite the Office of the DRI and used to take tea to the Office of the DRI often. He was made to sign the mahazar which he could not read and his signature was obtained on different dates on several papers. This is not exaggeration; you can read the details of the case in 2003 (158) E.L.T. 441 (Tri. - Del.)

Coming back to Karnataka High Court judgement, the Court observed that

It is mandatory that the mahazar proceedings have to be drawn accurately and faithfully in presence of respectable independent panch witnesses. In the instance case the panch witnesses chosen are with vulnerable antecedents. It is necessary that panch witness should be informed of the purpose of scientific methods and tests employed in the investigation, enabling them to appreciate the result of the tests before the raid by practical rehearsal demonstration like in the investigation of trap cases under Prevention of Corruption Act. If so done the panch witness would be in a position to understand the purpose and consequences of tests independently and they would be able to testify to the facts about conduct of test and the result noticed. The panchanama should reflect the independent factual perceptions of the panch witness at the scene of offence.

Rely on Evidence not statements :

Investigators in Customs and Central Excise cases believe that what cannot be proved by facts and evidence can be substituted by a voluntary statement. Everyone knows how voluntary the statement is. It is amazing that even the law believes that an offender will come and voluntarily give a statement about his offence!. DRI also believes in proving cases by statements, but as usual the Court was not impressed as it observed,

When the objects seized is not proved as Methaqualone, the voluntary statements made by accused admitting guilt would be of no consequence in law.

SUMMONS- How not to give :

The first weapon in an investigator's armoury is the much misused summons. Normally the summoned person is picked up, taken to the office, then given summons to come to the office, his voluntary statement recorded and then arrested. Most summons would require the person to attend on the same date as the date of summons. This would clearly prove that the summoned person was under the illegal custody of the officer summoning him. In this case also the summons was issued on 8th November to appear on 8th November. Further it required the summoned person to "give evidence truthfully".

The High Court held that D.R.I. was entitled to interrogate the accused u/s. 67 but can not insist accused to give evidence as called upon in the summons. Therefore the summons issued is illegal and bad in law.

Seal the seized goods:

The court also observed that the evidence on record disclosed the non-compliance of proper sealing and proper custody of the articles to allay the doubts about tampering.

Good case lost due to bad investigation:-

The High Court concluded that a good case was lost due to bad investigation.

The present case prima facie appears to be a good case for prosecution but lost because of bad investigation and bad presentation. The investigation officers in this case although not guided by any mala fide motives; the technical lapses have occurred on account of improper training and lack of guidelines regarding the right knowledge and techniques required for investigation of the offences under the Act. The I.O. to investigate under the Act requires a combination of several skills like the knowledge of the scientific aspects and also the legal aspects relating to investigation.

Teach them:-

The Court concluded with the necessity of educating the officers and drafting a uniform protocol of investigation.

It is necessary that every investigation officer should be educated about the necessary steps to be taken at every stage of investigation in accordance with law. Therefore I like to impress upon the investigation authorities, more so N.C.B. the coordinating agency should in consultation with other authorities draft a protocol of investigation as a uniform guideline to the investigation officers under the Act. Such a course would ensure efficiency and transparency sans imprudent technical lapses. Further proper instructions should be given for safe custody as required under the law.

The High Court finally directed the Registry to send a copy of the judgement to the Director, DRI, to take note of the observations and suggestions. Will DG DRI notice?

DRI Humour:-

Three officers had applied for a single deputation job with the DRI. The Super sleuth Chief conducting the interview looked at the three of them and said, "So you all want to be super cops with DRI, huh?"

They all nodded.

The Chief got up, opened a file drawer and pulled out a folder. Sitting back down, he opened it and pulled out a picture, and said, "To be in DRI, you have to be able to detect. You must be able to notice things such as distinguishing features and oddities such as scars and so forth."

So saying, he stuck the photo in the face of the first officer and withdrew it after about two seconds. "Now," he said, "did you notice any distinguishing features about this man?"

The officer immediately said, "Yes, I did. He has only one eye!"

The Chief shook his head and said, "Of course he has only one eye in this picture! It's a profile of his face! You're dismissed!"

The Chief then turned to the second officer, stuck the photo in his face for two seconds, pulled it back and said, "What about you? Notice anything unusual or outstanding about this man?"

"Yes! He has only one ear!"

The Chief put his head in his hands and exclaimed, "Didn't you hear what I just told the other officer? This is a profile of the man's face! Of course you can only see one ear!! You're dismissed too!"

The Chief turned his attention to the third and last officer and said, "This is probably a waste of time, but . . " He flashed the photo in his face for a couple of seconds and withdrew it, saying, "All right, did you notice anything distinguishing or unusual about this man?"

The officer said, "I sure did. This man wears contact lenses."

The Chief frowned, took another look at the picture and began looking at some of the papers in the folder. He looked up at the officer with a puzzled expression and said, "You're absolutely right! His bio says he wears contacts! How in the world could you tell that by looking at his picture?"

The officer rolled his eyes and said, "Well, With only one eye and one ear, he certainly can't wear glasses!"