Section 40: Unlawful dealings

40. Unlawful dealings (1) Any person who— (a) manufactures excisable goods without a licence; (b) manufactures excisable goods in a place other than in a factory; (c) manufactures, sells or stores, exposes or offers for sale, excisable goods on which no excise duty or no sufficient excise duty has been paid; (d) forges or counterfeits a lock, seal, label, excise stamp or mark, apparatus or equipment, or CCTV system used, issued or approved by the Director-General, or makes use of, or knowingly has in his possession, any such forged or counterfeit lock, seal, label, excise stamp or mark, apparatus or equipment, or CCTV system; (e) forges or counterfeits a licence, a permit or a written authorisation issued by the Director-General under this Act or a document required to be kept under section 24 or makes use of or knowingly has in his possession any such forged or counterfeit licence, permit, authorisation or document; (f) without lawful authority, imports or has in his possession a lock, seal, label or mark used, issued or approved by the DirectorGeneral; [Issue 6] E15 – 18 Revised Laws of Mauritius (g) without lawful authority, has in his possession— (i) a licence, permit or written authorisation issued by the Director-General under this Act; or (ii) a document required to be kept under section 24; (h) without lawful authority, breaks, alters, erases or otherwise interferes with a flowmeter, lock, seal, label or mark, apparatus or equipment, or CCTV system used, issued or approved by the Director-General; (i) being a licensee, without lawful authority, alters excisable goods by the addition of any substance or by the extraction of any of their constituents; (j) has in his possession excisable goods which contain a substance which is, or which renders or is likely to render the excisable goods, injurious to health; (k) except with the Director-General’s written authorisation, has in his possession spirits of more than 50 per cent of alcohol by volume; (l) not being a distiller-bottler, has in his possession alcohol, rum, local rum or compounded spirits, other than matured rum or matured local rum, containing a higher proportion of furfuraldehyde than one tenth of a gramme per hectolitre of absolute alcohol; or (m) tampers with or adulterates any excisable goods, shall commit an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding 100,000 rupees and to imprisonment for a term of not less than 18 months and not more than 3 years. (2) It shall be no defence for a person charged with an offence under subsection (1) (l) to prove that the presence of furfuraldehyde in compounded spirits is due to the lawful mixing with rum or local rum of any substance containing furfuraldehyde. [S. 40 amended by s. 10 (g) of Act 15 of 2006 w.e.f. 7 August 2006; s. 7 (e) of Act 26 of 2013 w.e.f. 21 December 2013.]