KARACHI: The Customs Taxation and Anti-Smuggling Court has granted interim pre-arrest bail to suspects, Pervaz Ahmed, Adnan Tariq and others, who were allegedly involved in a case of mis-declaration and import of kerosene oil under the garb of white spirit.
During the hearing, counsels for the both sides completed their arguments and after the arguments, the court granted the suspects bail against surety bonds of Rs 500,000 each and directed them to appear before the court on the next date of hearing.
It needs to be mentioned here that last week, the investigation officer had produced a suspect, Irfan Ahmed, the import manager of the delinquent company, in court. The company was allegedly involved in clearance of kerosene oil under the garb of white spirit which was shipped from Singapore by violating import restrictions imposed vide import policy order 2016. During an action, the officials of the Directorate General intercepted several oil tankers, including one bearing registration number TUB-122, LOK-7437 and recovered the oil.
According to the investigation officer, after the formalities, the said goods were seized and were sent for verification. He submitted that the examination report confirmed that instead of white spirit, M/s SMD Sons had fraudulently imported kerosene oil. It may be mentioned here that the court has already granted bail to suspects Muhammad Shahid, Abdul Samad, Sher Ameen and others in this case.
According to the prosecution, case was registered under section (s) 16, 32 (1) 79 (1) of the customs act, 1969 punishable under section 156 (1) (8) (14) (43) (81) (82) (89) & 157 (2) ibid, read with section 3 (1) 3 of the import restriction vide S#2 of appendix-B (parts-II) to IPO 2016, further read with clauses (a) & (b) preamble to SRO 499 (1)/ 2009 dated 13.6.2009, further read with SRO 566(1)/2005 dated 06/06/2005.
