KARACHI: The Customs Court called comments from customs department and extended pre-arrest bail of suspect Mian Abdul Rasheed son of Atta Muhammad, director M/s Kamran Lubricants Pvt Ltd, who is involved in a case of mega tax evasion.
On February 22, 2019, suspect appeared along with his counsel, investigation officer of customs department and special prosecutor also were present before the court, court sought comments from customs department and extended pre-arrest bail to above mentioned suspect for next date of hearing.
Earlier, counsel for suspect had appeared before the court and filed bail petition. He argued that his client is innocent and falsely implicated in this case. He is ready to face trail. After the hearing, court granted his bail and observed in its order, “I have considered the arguments on behalf of the parties and have gone through the material available on record, the contention raised by the learned counsel requires consideration however the involvement of present accused is yet to be evaluated when the evidence is brought on record during trail, the offence is punishable with three year or fine or both as such does not fall within the prohibitory clause of section 497 CRPC challan has been filed and accused is no more required for further investigation, therefore, I grant bail application of the accused subject to his furnishing surety in the sum of Rs1,00,000”.
Counsel for the above mentioned importer argued that according to the FIR, the occurrence dated of the alleged incident is May 26, 2009 whereas FIR was lodged on Nov 24, 2009, alleging therein that a consignment of ten containers is allegedly imported by the applicant by declaring description as residue of petroleum, which is chargeable of customs duty at 0%, sales tax at 16% and income tax at 2%.
He further argued that prosecution further fixed that quantity and other particulars have grossly been mis-declared by the importer to cause revenue loss to the government, representative samples were drawn, customs house laboratory identified the goods as diesel oil instead of declared description as residue petroleum in the BL and cargo information electronically filed by the concerned shipping agent with the collectorate of PaCCS, therefore, importer tried to evade customs duty and taxes to the tune of Rs. 6,207, 826 thus has committed an offence under section 2 (s) 2 (kka) section 16 and relation offences under section 32, 155 (A) (CENF).
Counsel argued that allegation is baseless and prosecution has not produced any single concrete evidence against his client, therefore, court has power to acquit his client for lack of evidence.
