KARACHI: Customs Court Judge Syed Faiz Rasool Rashdi framed charges against 18 accused booked in two cases of NATO/ISAF mega scam & evaded duty and taxes of Rs1096million and caused a big loss to the national exchequer.
During the hearing, accused Ishtiaq S/o Malik Ahmed, Shaukat Hussain S/o Muhammad Hussain, Muhammad Yasin S/o Gulab Khan, Muhammad Irfan S/o Hafiz Abdual Majeed, Mehfooz Ali Khan S/o Maqsood Ali Khan, Sardar Amin Farooqui S/o Jalil Ahmed, Noor Akbar Mahar S/o Ghulam Akbar Khan, Syed Waseem Kazmi S/o Muhammad Shamim, Munir Ahmed Brohi S/o Hassan Brohi, Sajjad Asghar Bukhari S/o Saeed Asghar, Muhammad Abbas Khan S/o Noor Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Adil S/o Ghulam Abbas Paracha, Kamran Ahmed S/o Imtiaz Ahmed, Shahid Rauf S/o Muhammad Yaseen Khan, Syed Arshad Ali S/o Shamshad Ali, A. Aziz Umrani S/o Muhammad Mithal, Saeed Babar S/o Faqeer Muhammad and others appeared before the court.
The court, framing charges, maintained that “on 14/12/2011 the staff of the directorate general of intelligence & investigation-BFR reported matters through probe committee FBR Islamabad that all of you accused, being clearing agents and customs staff/ officials with the connivance of each other, got cleared various consignments of Afghan importers valued Rs1350million meant for transit to Afghanistan from customs ports and stole the same en-route to Afghanistan/ smuggled into Pakistan and evaded duty and taxes of Rs1560millon and all of you committed an offence punishable under Section 156 (1) (8) (14) (14A) (8) (82) of the Customs Act-1969”.
After the frame of the charge, the court adjourned the hearing for further proceedings.
It needs to be pertained here that in both cases over 105 accused are absconders and most of them were declared as Proclaimed Offenders.
According to the prosecution, cases were registered against them in violation of Section 2(s) 16, 32 (1) 32, 121, 127, 128, 129, 209 punishable under clauses 8,14, 14A, 43, 47, 63, 64, 81, 82 & 86 of sub section (1) of Section 156 read with chapter VIII (clearing agent licensing rules) of the Customs Rules 2001. The instructions were issued by the board and collectorate from time to time, import policy & procedure order 2010-11 and Section 3 (1) of the Import & Exports (Control) Act-1950.
