HC orders Bihar govt to release Australian wine consignment imported by Nepal
2 min readPatna: After aging for eight months at Kashichak police station in Nawada, the imported consignment of exotic Australian wine imported by a Nepalese firm for its country, would now be handed over to them soon.
The Patna high court on Thursday, while hearing the writ petition filed by the firm named Ms Global Trading Concern Private Concern Private Limited, ordered the state government for release of the consignment within two weeks soon after it furnished a bank guarantee of Rs 8 lakh before the Nawada district magistrate.
Battery of lawyers including YV Giri, Nikhil Kumar Agrawal and Aditi Hansaria were representing the firm while the state was represented by Advocate general Lalit Kishore.
The sealed container containing 1070 cartons of wine was imported from Adelaide in Australia to Kathmandu in Nepal through Haldia sea port. The container loaded on a trailer truck, was en-route Nepal when police at Kashichak seized it on May 2 last year allegedly for violation of prohibition laws enforced in the state. The truck driver Dilip Sharma was arrested and sent to jail. Later police had sought permission for destruction of the consignment.
The firm was had moved high court to get the consignment released,
The division bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice Anil Kumar Upadhay ordered that the consignment would be escorted upto Indo-Nepal border by police where the container would be handed over to firm authorities by according to regular process while the truck would return to Nawada and decision to release it would be taken later.
Earlier on January 16, the bench had ordered for verification of the credentials of the Nepalese firm before ordering the release of the container for which a Bihar police team had went to Kathmandu for verifying the firm.
Agrawal said that the court had also ordered district magistrate would not take any action on the bank guarantee furnished by firm without court’s permission.
Courtesy: TNN