PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has barred Federal Board of Revenue from collecting Rs2.5 billion from the Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organisation (Pedo) on account of sales tax on power generation.
A bench, consisting of Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Roohul Amin Chamkani, also suspended a sales tax notice by the FBR on June 20 and issued notices to the respondents, including the FBR, the deputy commissioner (Inland Revenue) Peshawar, and the National Transmission and Dispatch Company, Islamabad, to respond to the petition.
Pedo’s lawyer Shumail Ahmad Butt said the FBR officials had been raiding different banks where his client held accounts asking them to pay the controversial amount from there. He alleged that even the bank officials were threatened with stringent action and arrests over failure to pay the said amount from the Pedo accounts.
Butt said the power generation units in question, Malakand III Hydel Power Project, was situated in Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (Pata) and was thus not amenable to Sales Tax. He said the Sales Tax Act had not been extended to Pata in terms of Article 247 of the Constitution.
The bench fixed June 26 for the next hearing into the case asking the FBR to stop the recovery of the sales tax in question from the Pedo.
