PESHAWAR, Jan 3: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday summoned the Collector of Customs Department for committing the contempt of court.

Justice Qazi Ahsanullah Qureshi directed the court officials to fix the case soon after winter vacations and directed the Collector, Mr Humayun Sikanderi, to appear on that date.

The order was issued in a contempt of court application filed by Sher Ahmad who stated in his application that despite repeated orders and directives issued by the Supreme Court and the Peshawar High Court the respondents had not been releasing huge quantity of silver seized from him by the Customs Department.

Senior advocate Abdul Hakeem Kundi appeared for the applicant and contended that the respondents had been offering lame excuses and delaying the matter on one pretext or the other. He argued that during the last hearing on Dec 12, the high court had sought comments from the Collector within a week, but till now no reply had been filed by the Customs Department.

The applicant was arrested more than a decade ago by the Customs Department while he was travelling in a vehicle near Azakhel. The customs officials recovered about 2700 tolas of silver from the vehicle. The silver belonged to a jeweller, Abid Hussain. The trial was conducted by Special Judge of Customs and Anti-Smuggling which acquitted both Sher Ahmad and Abid Hussain.

The trial court observed that the seized silver was local-made and not smuggled. The court also directed the Customs Department to return the silver.

The appeal of the Customs Department was turned down by the Peshawar High Court. Later, the applicant filed a writ petition before the high court which was accepted and directives were issued to the Customs Department to release the silver. Against that order of the high court the Customs Department took the case to the Supreme Court which dismissed its plea on May 15, 2001.

Following the issuance of the Supreme Court order, the applicant served a notice on the Collector, asking him to obey court’s order. Later, he served him with a contempt of court notice, but in vain. Left with no other option he filed the contempt of court application, praying to the high court to take action against the Collector. The other respondent in the application is Assistant Collector (Law), Mumtaz Mehdi.

The silver is at present deposited in the State Bank of Pakistan.