Foreign cigarettes sold at duty-free shops at airport departure lounges are exempt from carrying the local pictorial warnings against smoking, the Supreme Court has ruled.
A bench headed by the Chief Justice has asked customs authorities to immediately release the Rs 75 lakh worth of cigarettes they had seized from a duty-free shop at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport.
Bombay High Court had on January 13 refused relief to DFS India Private Limited, which has the contract for duty-free operations at Mumbai airport.
“These are exports, and exports are exempt from carrying statutory warnings,” DFS counsel Mukul Rohatgi told the apex court, appealing against the high court order.
“Duty-free is not export,” the high court had said. But Rohatgi argued that sale to those leaving the country amounted to “export” under the law.
Most of the buyers are passengers bound for the UK, the US and other countries where cigarettes often cost three times more, he said. “So they buy in bulk.”
The shops check a passenger’s boarding pass and passport before selling him such cigarette packs, the lawyer said, insisting that the packs have no way of making their way into India.
The cartons do carry the warnings even if the individual packs do not, Rohatgi said. Besides, the packs carry the warnings mandatory in their countries of manufacture — they only lack the Indian warning, he said.
Rohatgi added that cigarette packs sold at the arrival lounges — as opposed to departure lounges — did carry the pictorial warning introduced in India last year, in the form of a pair of lungs and two lines saying smoking kills and that tobacco causes cancer.
Only one international cigarette brand, Phillip Morris, now carries Indian warnings on packs sold even at the departure-lounge duty-free shops.
All countries in the world insist that cigarette packs carry local warnings in addition to those printed in their country of manufacture.
Source : telegraphindia.com