Page 174 - SMUGGLING IN INDIA REPORT FOR 2020-2021

128 2020-2021 SMUGGLING IN INDIA REPORT
The expertise of DRI in collection, collation, analysis and dissemination of intelligence relating to smuggling, investigations, adjudication of cases and prosecution of the arrested persons enables these legislations to gain teeth and
results in efficient enforcement of these Acts as far as frontiers of the country are concerned. A few of these Allied Acts are being discussed in subsequent paragraphs with specific reference to the role of DRI.
Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act, 1992
The objective of Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act (FTDR Act), 1992 is to provide for the development and regulation of foreign trade by facilitating the activities of import and export. The said Act authorizes Central Government to formulate and announce an Export and Import (EXIM) Policy. In the present globalized world, protecting and promoting economic interests is a sovereign function of any state and the FTDR Act is the key statute providing for restriction/prohibition of import and export of goods in order to protect the local industry, agriculture, trade and commerce.
Section 3(2) of the FTDR Act empowers the Central Government to make provisions for prohibiting, restricting/regulating import or
export of goods or services through an order and as per Section 3(3) of the FTDR Act, “all goods to which any order under sub-section (2) applies shall be deemed to be goods, the import or export of which has been prohibited under section 11 of the Customs Act, 1962 and all the provisions of that Act shall have effect accordingly”. DRI has done exceptional work in carrying out this function and booked numerous cases based on the notifications issued under Section 3 of FTDR. These cases include those, which impact the lives of the common man like seizure of PPE kits, gloves, sanitizers during the COVID 19 pandemic when their exports were restricted, seizure of onions when export of onions was restricted due to rising domestic