LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday set aside a finance ministry’s notification of the levy of regulatory duty on some 700 imported items.

Justice Shahid Karim passed the order, allowing a number of petitions moved by industries challenging an October 2017 notification, issued by the ministry of finance for being illegal.

The petitioners’ lawyers had argued that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had imposed regulatory duty under the impugned notification of the ministry on the import of various imported items, including hot rolling steel, flat rolled products of alloy steel, tubes, pipes, wire of iron and some dairy products. They said the ministry was not empowered to issue the notification to impose regulatory duty and the act was illegal, unlawful and without lawful authority. They added it was clear that the decision of imposing regulatory duty had not been exercised for any valid or bona fide reasons.

The lawyers also contended that the regulatory duty could only be imposed to regulate an uncertain market and not to collect additional taxes or to take away, in its garb, any reasonable profit that the industries might make. They asked the court to set aside the impugned notification for being contradictory to the Constitution and restrain the FBR from confiscating the imported goods.

Justice Karim allowed the petitions and set aside the notification for being issued without lawful authority.

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2018