ISLAMABAD: Customs Appellate Tribunal has dismissed Ayyan Ali’s petition for non-prosecution after the appellant failed to take part in tribunal’s proceedings despite issuance of multiple notices.
Earlier the tribunal had imposed a fine of Rs 14,000 on Ayyan Ali for not taking part in proceedings of cases at the tribunal despite several notices.
The tribunal’s division bench comprising Chairman, Justice (r) Manzoor Hussain and Ziauddin Wazir dismissed Ali’s cases filed before the tribunal. The bench had time and again issued notices to Ayyan Ali and her counsel Latif Khosa. The tribunal then had imposed the said fine in wake of ignoring the notices.
Ayyan Ali had filed the petition with the Customs Appellate Tribunal for early hearing of her restored appeal, challenging an announcement about money laundering of $500,000 in March 2015.
Ayyan counsels argued that his client was innocent. The counsels submitted that department had not sufficient evidence to prove that black money was being laundered. He asked the tribunal to set aside the announcement made by customs court. The bench then dated in office hearing.
Ayyan Ali’s counsel, Sardar Latif Khosa had paid fine Rs 10,000 for restoration of the case. She was arrested from Benazir Bhutto International Airport with $500,000 in March 2015. The Airport Security Force intercepted her and recovered the said amount from her luggage. She was released on bail after four months in Adiala Jail.
Through the petition, Ayyan’s counsel challenged the said decision announced by a Rawalpindi customs court. The court had indicted Ayyan for trying to smuggle $500,000 out of the Pakistan.
The amount was confiscated by customs authorities and later the customs adjudication found her guilty of smuggling the said amount out of Pakistan.
The Customs Court had maintained the departmental decision on confiscation of the amount being tried to smuggle and also added fine of $500,000 (the same amount seized while being smuggled) on Ayyan.
