KARACHI: The Custom (Taxation & Anti-Smuggling) Court was informed that absconding accused named Bashir Dawood and Mariyam Dawood are ready to pay evaded amount to the national exchequer who were booked in a case of concealment of income, furnishing inaccurate particulars of income/wealth and money laundering through offshore company.
Customs Court Judge Syed Faiz Rasool Rashdi heard the case. During the hearing, court was informed that said accused persons are ready to pay evaded amount to tax authorities after the court adjourned the hearing for May 15, 2017 and directed investigation officer to submit a progress report on the next date of hearing.
On the last date of hearing, Investigation Officer Muhammad Arif had appeared before the court and submitted that both above named accused have not been arrested yet. He further submitted that proceedings for the proclamation have been completed against them. After the hearing, court had declared them as Proclaimed Offenders (POs).
It needs to be pertained here that the court had issued several times their bail-able and non-bail-able warrants but they did not turn up. On the last date of hearing, court had directed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for issuing read warrants for the accused.
Earlier, investigation officer had filed an application before the court for attachment of property and bank accounts under section 8 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act-2010 to protect the public exchequer and also had informed the court that above named accused are absconders therefore court had allowed the IO for attachment of their bank accounts as case property for 30 days.
According to the prosecution, case no 01/2016 was registered against them alleging that the accused persons, having offshore company and concealing income of Rs9870million and amount of income tax sought to be evaded of Rs2469million and amount of income tax recoverable (up to tax year 2014) of Rs2467million along with default surcharge & penalty, will be determined at the time of payment.
The case was registered in violation of Section 111 (1) (d) (1) of the Income Tax Ordinance-2001 which is liable to be prosecuted under Section 192 a ibid read with Section 2 and 8 (2) of the AMP Act-2010.
