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KARACHI, Sept 4: A division bench of the Sindh High Court asked the Central Board of Revenue on Monday to take action against the officials of the customs intelligence and investigation wing and ordered the wing to immediately return to the importer an unlawfully-kept pay order.
The petitioner, Advocate Junaid Ghaffar submitted imported phones scratch cards and duly filed the ‘goods declaration’ on arrival of the consignment. In the declaration, classification was sought under HS code 4911.9000, which carries customs duty at the rate of 10 per cent.
The classification was accepted by the preventive collectorate and the consignment was released on payment of the assessed duty. However, the intelligence wing detained the goods, changed the classification arbitrarily and coerced the petitioner to pay duty at the rate of 20 per cent. The respondent wing denied having detained the consignment and the court gave no finding on it.
The only point under consideration was whether the wing had any authority to ask for any pay order and to keep it without reassessment proceedings or re-evaluation of the goods. The respondent’s counsel was unable to cite any provision of law under which the pay order might be retained by the wing.
“The only observation we can make is that it is a case of high-handedness, arbitrariness and harassment on the part of officials. In the better interest of the country’s economy, it is for the CBR to take appropriate action against their subordinates. The wing has no authority to keep the pay order and is directed to return it forthwith”.
BAIL DISMISSED: The Sindh High Court dismissed on Monday bail application of a customs clerk-turned exporter allegedly involved in massive tax frauds.
Raja Zarat Khan resigned as a clerk in the customs department in 2002 and launched his Bawan Shah Group of Companies in 2003. Named as co-accused in the four cases registered against him are an assistant collector and an appraiser. They are accused of obtaining huge amounts of rebates and sales tax refunds on the basis of fraudulent and illegal exports. He had good relations with most of the customs staff and import and export consignments were not properly inspected and examined.
Advocate Azizullah K. Shaikh argued the bail application on ground of sickness as well on merit. He said even if the prosecution allegation about customs duty evasion of Rs 856,351 and income tax evasion of Rs 418,389 were accepted as correct, the applicant was ready to pay the entire amount. The claim of rebate amounting to Rs2,405,195 was illusive and no export had taken place because of seizure of containers by the customs authorities.
Representing the Central Board of Revenue and the customs department, Advocates Abdul Hafeez Pirzada and Mahmood Alam Rizvi submitted that the prosecution had a strong prima facie case and the previous conduct of the accused and his absconding accomplices indicated likelihood of their evading justice. Twenty more FIRs against the accused and co-accused were in the pipeline and investigations would be seriously prejudiced if they were allowed to abuse the process of law under the cover of bail.
Justice M. Mujibullah Siddiqui, who heard the matter in his capacity as special appellate court for customs, dismissed the bail plea after hearing the arguments.
BAIL GRANTED: Justice Syed Zawwar Hussain Jaffery, meanwhile, granted bail to Hazrat Ali in a fake passport case. Advocate Mohammad Farooq argued that the maximum punishment that could be awarded to the accused was three years and the offence was bailable. The court granted bail in the sum of Rs 100,000.
Order on the bail application of Dr Kashif Matin, accused of extracting kidney from a patient to transplant it in another was reserved by Justice Ghulam Rabbani for announcement on Tuesday.
Advocate M. Ilyas Khan argued that the accused could not be punished on the uncorroborated statement of the complainant. The anesthetist and the surgery technician had categorically denied the allegation against the doctor and there was no evidence to link him with the commission of the offence.
