LAHORE: Customs Appellate Tribunal upheld an order of the adjudication and dismissed the appeal filed by Jahangir Ghulam Ali, a resident of Lahore, against additional Collector of Customs, (Preventive), AFU Lahore and Superintendent of Customs (Traffic).
Imran Tariq, a member of technical bench-II, heard the case and passed the judgement with the order that under the baggage rules 2006 notified under the SRO 666(I) 2006 read with Section 3 (1) (3) of the Import and Export Control Act (1950), the remaining amount of 10,134 US dollars for three passengers has been rightly confiscated. So instant customs appeal, being devoid of merit, is dismissed with no order.
As per brief history of the case, Superintendent of Airport Traffic with the order of officers searched a passenger Jahangir Ghulam Ali on a tip-off. As per information, Jahangir would attempt to smuggle foreign currency.
During a detailed inspection, the customs official recovered 40,134 US dollars from his possession in the presence of two witnesses. Jahangir breached the law and recovered currency was seized under the Section 168(I) of Customs Act-1969.
After a show cause notice, the adjudication authority heard the arguments and declared outright confiscation of the seized money and also imposed Rs 50,000 fine on him under the Customs Act-1969.
The appellant challenged the ONO before the customs appellate tribunal on the grounds that ONO is mis-conceived and department failed to produce any virtue of which the provision of Section 168(2) of Customs Act-1969 is set to be nullified in the case of currency matters. The counsel of the respondent denied all the allegations.
After hearing the arguments, Customs Appellate Tribunal rejected the appeal filed by the complainant.
