PESHAWAR, May 19: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday directed the customs authorities to return 480 packages of disposable razors to a trading company which had imported the consignment six years ago under the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Tariq Pervez and Justice Tallat Qayyum Qureshi observed that the item was not on the 'negative list' prepared by the federal government for providing transit facilities under the ATTA.

The bench accepted a writ petition filed by MS Attiqullah Limited, challenging the seizure of the shipment. The petitioner claimed that a shipping company in Dubai had inadvertently not mentioned the 480 packages in the Afghan Transit Trade Invoice prepared for importing various items for Afghanistan.

The petitioner held that the company had informed the customs authorities about the error and requested to correct the same before the goods arrived at Peshawar Dry Port, but they seized it there.

Former attorney general for Pakistan, M. Sardar Khan, appeared for the petitioner and contended that the goods had reached Peshawar Dry Port on April 2, 1998, whereas the shipping company had sent a letter to the authorities on March 25 for correcting the error.

Mr Khan produced various documents in support of his contention, stating that it was an established practice at the customs dry ports that such mistakes were corrected. He cited some identical cases in which the customs officials had corrected the invoices.

The deputy attorney general Salahuddin Khan appeared for the customs officials and claimed that it was not an inadvertent error. He added that disposable razors were on the negative list, therefore under section 129 of the Customs Act, 1969, it could not be provided transit facilities.

Mr Sardar Khan stated that if razors were proved to be on the negative list he would not press his petition. The court directed Salahuddin Khan to produce documents for proving that razors were on the negative list. However, he could not produce the required documents.