The Customs Map: Ports, Airports, Stations and Areas

Section 7(2), inserted in 2018, provides that the Board may, by notification, specify the limits of any customs station.

The recurring word is "alone", and it carries the whole section. The notification does not merely permit unloading at the named place; it forbids it everywhere else. That is why the classes are drafted as exclusive lists and why the section can support a confiscation.

The 2018 additions matter. International courier terminals and foreign post offices were brought into section 7 because e-commerce had moved a large volume of low-value imports out of the conventional port system, and a place which is not appointed under section 7 cannot lawfully clear anything.

Section 8: approval of landing places and limits of a customs area

Section 8 empowers the Principal Commissioner of Customs or Commissioner of Customs, in any customs port, customs airport, inland container depot or coastal port, to:

(a) approve proper places for the unloading and loading of goods or for any class of goods; and

(b) specify the limits of any customs area.

Note the division of authority, which is examinable. Section 7 is exercised by the Board and creates the station; section 8 is exercised by the Commissioner and works inside the station, approving the actual berths, aprons and sheds and drawing the boundary of the customs area. The Board decides that Nhava Sheva is a customs port; the Commissioner decides which berths within it are approved landing places and where the customs area ends.

"Customs area" is defined in section 2(11) as the area of a customs station or a warehouse and any area in which imported goods or export goods are ordinarily kept before clearance. The limits matter because section 141 subjects all conveyances and goods in a customs area to the control of officers of customs, and section 45 places imported goods unloaded in a customs area in the custody of an approved person until they are cleared.

Section 9: omitted

Section 9 has been omitted. It formerly provided for the appointment of warehousing stations, and that subject now sits in Chapter IX, in section 57 and following, where licences for public, private and special warehouses are granted. A candidate should say the section is omitted and where its subject matter went, rather than passing over the gap in the numbering as though it did not exist.

Section 10: appointment of boarding stations

Section 10 empowers the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner of Customs to appoint, in or near any customs port, a boarding station for the purpose of enabling officers of customs to board any vessel arriving from a foreign country and to discharge any duties imposed on them under the Act.

The boarding station is where the Act's control over a vessel actually begins. The master must bring the vessel to it, the officers board there, and it is at that point that the documents required by section 29 and the arrival manifest under section 30 are dealt with. Read with section 37, which permits any officer to board any conveyance carrying imported or export goods, section 10 is what turns a general power into a routine.

How the map is enforced

The map is not decorative, and the enforcement chain should be stated in an answer.

Section 29 requires the person in charge of a vessel or aircraft entering India from outside to call or land only at a customs port or customs airport, unless compelled by accident, stress of weather or other unavoidable cause.

Section 33 provides that imported goods shall not be unloaded, and export goods shall not be loaded, at any place other than a place approved under section 8(a).

Section 34 requires that unloading and loading take place only under the supervision of the proper officer.

Section 111(h) then makes goods unloaded or attempted to be unloaded in contravention of section 33 or section 34 liable to confiscation, and section 113(d) and 113(e) do the same for export goods.

So the sequence runs: the Board appoints the station under section 7; the Commissioner approves the place within it under section 8; sections 29, 33 and 34 confine activity to those places; and sections 111 and 113 confiscate goods that ignore them. Four administrative sections at the front of the Act become, at the back of it, a ground for taking a consignment away from its owner.

Worked example

The MV Anjali, carrying palm oil for Suvarna Oils Ltd, is due at Kandla, an appointed customs port. Off the Gujarat coast the master finds a berth is unavailable and, to save demurrage, moves to a private jetty at a nearby creek which is not an appointed place, and begins discharging into road tankers.

Every step of that is unlawful, and the sections say why. The creek is not a customs port appointed under section 7(1)(a), so calling there breaches section 29. The jetty is not a place approved under section 8(a), so unloading there breaches section 33. No proper officer supervised the unloading, so section 34 is breached as well.

The consequences are automatic. The oil is liable to confiscation under section 111(h); the vessel is liable to confiscation under section 115(2) as a conveyance used in the carriage of goods liable to confiscation; and penalty follows under section 112 against the master and against Suvarna Oils if it is shown to have been concerned in the act.

Contrast the case where the master was driven into the creek by a cyclone. Section 29 itself excepts arrival compelled by accident, stress of weather or other unavoidable cause, provided the person in charge reports to the nearest customs officer or officer in charge of a police station and does not permit goods to be unloaded without the officer's consent. The map does not punish misfortune; it punishes choosing an unapproved place for convenience.

What it does NOT mean

It does not mean a place appointed under section 7 is automatically approved for unloading. Section 7 creates the station and section 8 approves the actual landing places inside it. A berth within a customs port that has not been approved under section 8(a) is still an unapproved place, and unloading there breaches section 33.

It does not mean the customs area is the whole port. Its limits are specified by the Commissioner under section 8(b), and outside them the special controls in sections 45 and 141 do not operate.

And it does not mean section 9 is missing from the Act by accident. It was omitted, and warehousing stations are now dealt with by the licensing provisions of Chapter IX beginning at section 57.

Quick revision

• Section 7: the Board, by notification, appoints customs ports and customs airports (a), inland container depots (aa), international courier terminals (ab), foreign post offices (ac), land customs stations (b), routes by land or inland water (c), and coastal ports (d); section 7(2) permits the Board to specify the limits of a customs station. The word "alone" in each clause is what makes every other place unlawful.
• Section 8: the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner approves proper places for unloading and loading (a) and specifies the limits of a customs area (b). Board creates the station; Commissioner works inside it.
• Section 9 stands omitted; warehousing stations are now handled by the licensing provisions from section 57.
• Section 10: the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner appoints boarding stations so that officers may board vessels arriving from a foreign country; read with section 37's general power to board.
• Enforcement chain: s.29 (call only at a customs port or airport) to s.33 (unload only at an approved place) to s.34 (only under the proper officer's supervision) to s.111(h) and s.113 (confiscation) and s.115(2) (the conveyance).
• Definitions that connect: customs area s.2(11), customs station s.2(13), customs port s.2(12), customs airport s.2(10); and s.141 subjects conveyances and goods in a customs area to officers' control.

Test yourself

1. Distinguish the powers under section 7 from those under section 8. They differ in who exercises them and in what they do. Section 7 is exercised by the Board, by notification in the Official Gazette, and it creates the places at which foreign trade may lawfully be conducted: customs ports and customs airports for unloading imported and loading export goods, inland container depots, international courier terminals, foreign post offices, land customs stations, the routes by which goods may pass by land or inland water, and coastal ports for coastal trade. Section 7(2) additionally lets the Board specify the limits of a customs station. Every clause is drafted with the word "alone", so the notification is simultaneously a permission for the named place and a prohibition everywhere else.

Section 8 is exercised by the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner of Customs and operates inside a place the Board has already appointed. It approves the proper places for unloading and loading, that is the particular berths, aprons and sheds, and it specifies the limits of the customs area. The practical consequence is that a berth inside an appointed customs port may still be an unapproved place: appointment under section 7 does not carry approval under section 8, and unloading at an unapproved berth contravenes section 33 and renders the goods liable to confiscation under section 111(h).

2. Why is the geography of the Act treated as a matter of jurisdiction rather than of convenience? Because the Act is enforced by confining lawful activity to a small number of controlled points and treating everything outside them as unlawful in itself. India cannot police fifteen thousand kilometres of land frontier and seven and a half thousand of coastline, so instead of attempting surveillance everywhere it declares, under section 7, that named places alone shall be customs ports, airports, depots, courier terminals, post offices and land stations, and that named routes alone may be used. Section 8 then approves the actual landing places within those stations and draws the limits of the customs area.

The result is that the department does not have to prove an intention to evade duty in order to act. Section 29 requires arrival only at a customs port or airport, section 33 forbids unloading anywhere but an approved place, and section 34 requires the proper officer's supervision; contravention of sections 33 or 34 makes the goods liable to confiscation under section 111(h) without more, and the conveyance liable under section 115(2). Geography is therefore the mechanism by which a preventive statute becomes administrable, and a breach of it is a jurisdictional wrong rather than an irregularity to be excused.

3. What is a boarding station and why does the Act provide for one? A boarding station is a place in or near a customs port, appointed by the Principal Commissioner or Commissioner of Customs under section 10, for the purpose of enabling officers of customs to board a vessel arriving from a foreign country and to discharge the duties imposed on them by the Act. The Act provides for it because control over a vessel has to begin at an identifiable point before the cargo is dispersed. The master brings the vessel to the boarding station, the officers go aboard there, and the documents required on arrival are dealt with at that point: section 29 governs the arrival itself, and section 30 requires delivery of the arrival manifest or import manifest. Read with section 37, which permits any officer of customs to board any conveyance carrying imported or export goods, section 10 converts a discretionary boarding power into a settled routine at a known place.

4. What happened to section 9? It has been omitted. It formerly provided for the appointment of warehousing stations, that is, the places at which public and private warehouses could be established. That subject matter now lives in Chapter IX of the Act, which begins at section 57 and provides for the licensing of public warehouses, with section 58 for private warehouses and section 58A for special warehouses, following the restructuring of the warehousing provisions in 2016. The gap in the numbering should be explained rather than ignored, because an answer that lists sections 7, 8 and 10 without accounting for section 9 reads as though the writer has not looked at the Act.