Court: Body massagers cannot be classified as adult sex toys and are prohibited from import

The High Court said body massagers cannot be classified as adult sex toys. (representative)

Mumbai:

The Bombay High Court has said that body massagers cannot be classified as adult sex toys and therefore cannot be included in the list of prohibited import items.

A division bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Kishor Sant on Wednesday quashed the order passed by the customs department to seize the consignment containing body massagers.

The Commissioner of Customs confiscated the shipment, claiming that the body massagers could be used as adult sex toys and that the import of such items was prohibited.

The High Court said the belief that body massagers could be used as adult sex toys was clearly a figment of the imagination of the Commissioner of Customs and Excise.

It dismissed a petition filed by the Commissioner of Customs challenging a May 2023 order passed by the Central Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal, which had stayed the customs department’s order to seize consignments containing body massagers.

The Commissioner of Customs, acting as the adjudicating officer, had in April 2022 refused to release consignments containing body massagers, stating that they were adult sex toys and therefore prohibited from import under a Customs notification issued in January 1964.

The High Court noted that the findings recorded by the Commissioner were “strange and clearly appear to be rather surprising and far-fetched as he has reduced in his writing his vivid imagination of body massage equipment, in particular his body massage equipment”. Perception of perceived usefulness. “

“This is clearly a figment of the Commissioner’s imagination and/or his personal belief that the goods were prohibited items,” the High Court said.

The court pointed out that body massagers were traded in the domestic market and were not contraband.

It said the Commissioner (adjudicating officer) failed to act as a prudent officer and should take reasonable action while deciding the issue of clearance of goods.

The Customs Commissioner also cited Section 292(2) of the Indian Penal Code, which states that any book, pamphlet, paper, picture or any other article is deemed to be obscene if it is of a lewd nature or appeals to lust .

However, the High Court said that a machine like a massager cannot of course be compared with ancillary articles in the aforesaid entry, which are in the nature of books, pamphlets, papers, drawings, paintings, portraits, figures or articles etc. which are It is prohibited by the “Export Prohibition Control Law of the People’s Republic of China”. notify.

Aggrieved by the commissioner’s order, the owner of the consignment had approached the court.

The court, while dismissing the order of the commissioner, came down heavily on the commissioner’s order and said the commissioner’s view of classifying body massagers as adult sex toys was purely a figment of the officer’s imagination.

The commissioner claimed that before deciding to ban the goods, he heard the opinion of experts who believed that body massagers could be used for other purposes.

However, the judge said that just because the goods may have other uses is not a criterion for deeming them prohibited.

“It appears that these experts clearly considered that while the imported article was undoubtedly a body massager, they also considered that the article could also be used for the purposes envisaged by the Commissioner,” the High Court said.

The bench dismissed the petition filed by the Customs Commissioner and upheld the order of the tribunal.

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