Customs appeal over gold seized from an Imphal Airport passenger remains pending
Customs absolutely confiscated 498 grams of gold and imposed a Rs 1.70 lakh penalty after a passenger was intercepted at Imphal Airport. CESTAT set aside the order for lack of corroborating evidence and procedural unfairness. The Customs Department's appeal remains pending before the Manipur High Court, which adjourned it on 10 September 2026.
This page records what the cited court, tribunal and government records say happened. Findings belong to the court or authority that made them; this register adds none of its own. Names of private individuals are withheld unless a naming gate clears them.
How we verify →Customs' appeal against the CESTAT decision is pending before the Manipur High Court and was listed for 18 November 2026.
What happened
CESTAT recorded that the passenger was intercepted at Imphal Airport on 30 June 2019 while travelling to Jaipur. Customs recovered three pieces of gold weighing 498 grams.
CESTAT recorded that the adjudicating authority absolutely confiscated the gold, valued at Rs 17,03,160, and imposed a penalty of Rs 1,70,000.
CESTAT said Customs had relied principally on a purported confession and had not supplied important relied-upon documents. It also found no proper corroborating investigation and no evidence showing that the marking on the gold established foreign origin.
CESTAT set aside the appellate order and allowed the passenger's appeal. Customs then brought Cus.App. No. 1 of 2024 before the Manipur High Court.
The Manipur High Court recorded on 10 September 2026 that the appeal would stand over with similar matters to 18 November 2026. It expressly said it was not passing a tagging order.
What the record says
“As similar matters are scheduled to be taken up on 18.11.2026, let captioned matters also stand over to 18.11.2026. To be noted, we are not passing any tagging order but we are only listing on the same date.”
Cus.App. No. 1 of 2024 with connected miscellaneous applications, paragraph 1 — read the full text
A peaceful economic act
The alleged act was carrying gold on a domestic flight from Imphal. The opened decisions disclose no violence, fraud, coercion, victim, poisonous product or theft of public goods, and CESTAT found that Customs lacked corroborating evidence that the gold was smuggled.
What we could not confirm
The latest High Court order is procedural and does not decide the merits. The public High Court order does not reproduce the underlying facts; those details come from the reproduced CESTAT judgment. The airport's district is stated as Imphal West based on the location of Imphal International Airport, but the opened judgment describes the place only as Imphal Airport. The selected case has the most recent official act found, although its seizure predates newer qualifying seizures whose final official decisions were issued in 2025 or earlier in 2026.