KARACHI: The Customs Court directed investigation officer to complete investigation against Dalair Khan, proprietor of M/s Hikmat Traders, Abdul Rehman Siddiquie, proprietor of M/s Al Rahman Associates and others who are booked in a case of attempting evasion of duties and taxes and getting delivery of miscellaneous goods by presenting/ submitting forget/ tampered goods declarations.
On October 16, 2019, investigation officer of Customs Collectorate Port Muhammad Bin Qasim, Karachi submitted first information report (FIR) and informed that goods were physically examined imported by above mentioned suspects and container-wise inventories were prepared in respect of the said consignments. The appraising/ examining officer endorsed/ written their examination reports on the reverse of these goods declarations in line with inventories prepared at the time of physical examination, therefore, the goods declaration were assessed provisionally under section 81 of the customs act, 1969 in pursuance of the SHC in constitutional petition filed by importer regarding regulatory duty in terms of SRO 1265/2018.
He further submitted that from the initial scrutiny of GD, examination reports, inventories prepared at the time of examinations, comparison with the assessment sheets, it came to be surface that the clearing agent/ importer subsequent to the endorsement of examination reports by the examining officers and assessment of the GD by appraising officers, tampered the examination and assessment reports endorsed on GD by fraudulently and illegally inserting decimal in the figures of quantities of the higher value/ tariff miscellaneous goods so as to understate their quantities, cutting the writing and over-writing the assessed values of the goods so as to show lower assessed values.
He further submitted that the tampered examination and assessment reports were fed into the one-customs system through the unique IDs of examining and appraising offices and concerned staff, therefore, clearing agent/ importer took the delivery of the consignments on lesser amount of duties and taxes than the actual leviable duties and taxes, therefore, evading duty and taxes to the tune of Rs. 62, 736, 992.
