HYDERABAD, Jan 18: A division bench of Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit bench here on Friday has issued notices to Deputy Director, Federal Investigation Agency, Crime Circle, Hyderabad and Assistant Director Intelligence & Investigation, Customs and others for Jan 29 on a constitutional petition, seeking registration of FIR against customs officials.
The standing counsel for Deputy Attorney General has also been put on notice.
Mr Rasool Bux Unnar advocate filed the petition on behalf of Mirza Aslam, citing Establishment Secretary, Deputy Director, FIA Crime Circle Hyderabad, Assistant Director Intelligence & Investigation, Regional Manager, Utilities Store Corporation, In-charge of utilities stores of Qasimabad, Saddar, Unit No-8 Latifabad, and warehouse of customs as respondents.
The petitioner claimed that he had purchased cloth, measuring 28,483 yards on Aug 1, 2001 from the In-charge warehouse Customs Goods, Regional Office Utility Stores Corporation, Hyderabad, and had made payment to the warehouse in-charge as per cash memos.
He said the petitioner had taken away the cloth to his godown in Latifabad. On Aug 29, Syed Zaheer-ul-Hassan Rizvi, Superintendent of Customs, Jaffar Hussain, Senior Investigation Officer, Poonam Chand, Mohammad Yaqoob Kalroo, Shabbir Hussain, both investigation officers, and other customs officials raided the godown of petitioner in order to harass him and took away the purchased cloth (97 bags of different sizes).
He said that he was not even given notice under section 171 of Customs Act and even permission from the area magistrate for conducting raid was not sought.
He said that vouchers and cash memos and counting register were also available at the godown. He said that to his utter surprise, instead of 28,483 yards, they had shown total seized cloth as 15,337 yards and had allegedly misappropriated 13,146 yards.
He filed an application before the Deputy Director, Crime Circle, Hyderabad, on Sept 18, 2001. He charged that the customs authorities had misappropriated the cloth and prepared forged record to show that the material was not 28,483 yards. This act made them liable for prosecution under sections 409, 468, 471 read with section 5(H) PAC Act, 1947, against all persons concerned, including store in-charge, warehouse in-charge/ custom goods, regional manager utility stores, assistant director intelligence and investigation customs excise and sales tax range office, Hyderabad.
He claimed the record of utility stores and warehouse was manipulated as different entries were made on different dates.
He claimed that he had paid Rs958,661, the amount estimated by the in-charge warehouse in his own handwriting. He also produced the handwritten statement of the in-charge with the petition and added that the said amount was deposited in the account of Corporate Centre Branch of Habib Bank Limited, showing that the cloth was bought from the warehouse.