Calcutta High Court holds that appeals against FERA penalties retain their criminal nature even after FEMA replaced FERA, allowing them to be treated as criminal appeals.
The Calcutta High Court has ruled that appellate proceedings arising from penalty orders under the now-repealed Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) retain their penal and criminal character, even though the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) has replaced it. As such, appeals in these matters can be heard as criminal appeals.
The court emphasized that the nature of a proceeding is determined by the consequences of non-compliance, not merely by the statute’s civil label. Where FERA sanctions involve punitive detentions, asset confiscations, or imprisonment-like consequences, their continuation in appeal must be viewed through a criminal law lens.
For practitioners handling legacy FERA cases, this decision is crucial: it affirms access to higher judicial forums on criminal procedure grounds and may influence the application of limitation periods, legal aid entitlements, and bail jurisprudence. The judgment underscores that substantive justice outweighs procedural classification, especially in economic offences with penal ramifications.
