ISLAMABAD: With the retirement of Gulab Shah, the judicial member seat of the Customs Appellate Tribunal Peshawar is practically finished.
The tribunal consists of two members – the judicial member and a technical member. No one has been appointed as the technical member in the Peshawar tribunal, so with the retirement of the judicial member, the tribunal is practically finished.
On the other hand, the post of technical member in the Customs Appellate Tribunal lies vacant for quite some time now and no appointment has been made on this post.
In Karachi, a port city where the number of cases is a lot more than the rest of country, three benches have been formed. The third bench neither has a judicial member nor a technical member.
The number of pending cases is on the rise due to lack of timely decisions. The pending cases include those that can add billions of rupees to the national exchequer.
Eight customs appellate tribunals were formed in Pakistan, out of which only six tribunals in Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and Karachi are working.
