November 29, 2001	Thursday	Ramazan 13, 1422

ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: Admitting a review petition against its own judgment on the regulatory duty, the Supreme Court has issued notice to Attorney General to give his views whether the court could condone the delay in the filing of appeals against the high court orders.

Akram Shaikh, counsel for Ravi Spinning Mills, one among 250 petitioners, submitted that the federal government had challenged the high court decision on their petition, declaring the imposition of regulatory duty on all imports void, after a delay of 132 days.

The bench which admitted the review petition for hearing consisted of Justice Muhammad Bashir Jehangiri, Justice Muhammad Arif and Justice Qazi Muhammad Farooq.

Akram Shaikh submitted that the federal government, after a delay of 132 days, had filed appeals against a decision of the Lahore High Court.

The counsel contended that government appeals were heard by the bench headed by the then Chief Justice Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui.

The counsel pointed out that the Supreme Court office had pointed out that the appeals were time barred. The court after hearing the appeals kept the judgment reserved for five months. When the judgment was delivered the issue of time limitation was not discussed at all.

Akram Shaikh said that in October 1996 regulatory duty was imposed under the Customs Act. He said that the regulatory duty was meant to be imposed in some cases only where special order was required, but the government imposed 10 per cent regulatory duty on all imports.