PESHAWAR, Aug 2: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday summoned a customs inspector and another person in a case of auctioning a luxurious vehicle contrary to a court order.
A bench of the court comprising Justice Tallat Qayyum Qureshi and Justice Ijaz Afzal Khan ordered customs inspector Mohammad Aqleem and Mohammad Farooq, the man who had purchased the vehicle, to appear in the court on Sept 12.
Customs assistant collector (auction and sale) Mohammad Aamir told the court that the vehicle had been auctioned on April 16 and a subordinate court had issued the order against the auction on April 10. He said the customs inspector, who was present in the court, had not informed the department about the court order.
The bench was hearing a petition filed by the vehicle’s owner, Bachauddin Khan. He said officials of the customs department had seized his vehicle, a Prado land cruiser, on Sept 26, 2006, in the Mardan district on the charge of not paying the customs duty. He said that on his application the customs court concerned had directed against auctioning the vehicle and had allowed him to pay the customs duty. But, he said, the customs department auctioned his vehicle at a throwaway price of Rs670,000.
The assistant collector said they were not aware about the court order. He said that after the seizure of the vehicle, they sent several notices to the petitioner to pay the customs duty, but he did not do so.
CAR SURRENDERED: Officials of the Islamabad Anti-Car Lifting Cell on Thursday surrendered a car to the high court which it had handed over to the Lahore police in violation of a court order.
A two-member bench of the high court directed two officials of the cell, sub-inspector Mohammad Shafiq and ASI Khalid Niazi, to file a reply to show-cause notices served on them by the court while initiating contempt of court proceedings against them.
The same car had earlier been seized by authorities in 1999 on suspicion that its chassis number had been tampered. A petition had been filed in the high court which had ruled that in the light of chemical examination report, the chassis had not been tampered with and had ordered handing over the vehicle to its owner.
The said order had been challenged in the Supreme Court which had upheld it in 2000.
On June 4, 2007, officials of the Islamabad ACLC stopped the car at Tarnol and took it for chemical examination.
The car’s present owner, Gohar Zaman Khan, filed a contempt of court petition in the high court stating that he had produced the previous order of the court to officials but they had declined to return him the car.
Police officials claimed that this was not the same car about which the high court had passed the verdict. They said the chemical examination in Islamabad showed that this was a stolen car lifted from Lahore in 1996. An FIR had been registered at the Race Course police station, Lahore.
They said that on July 20 the district magistrate of Islamabad had ordered that the vehicle should be handed over on temporary basis to the Race Course police station and the next day Inspector Mohammad Younas had taken away the car.
During the last hearing, the court had ordered the officials to produce the car on Aug 2.