KARACHI: M/s Blue Mountain Trading has approached the Sindh High Court (SHC) and filed a petition against detention of its imported consignment comprising coffee beans/ coffee by Customs Appraisement.
On 15 July 2020, counsel for the petitioner stated in his petition that through this petition the petitioner wants intervention of this court in the matter where respondents intend to dispose of/ destroy petitioner’s consignment of coffee beans/ coffee products confiscated on purported charges of violation of IPO while petitioner first statutory appeal filed against the impugned ONO is pending before the respondent and matter is likely to take some time as post of one of the worthy member of the appellate tribunal is vacant.
He further submitted that petitioner is sole proprietorship engaged in import and supply of edible food items, inter alia, including coffee beans/ coffee for supply to hotel/ café industries/ industrial consumer and mainly to M/s Pakistan Services Ltd (Pearl Continental Hotels) & Hashwani Hotels (Marriot Hotels), the aforesaid items are supplied to such hotels as raw materials in bulk where after same are further processed by the hotels/ restaurants to make the same edible products for consumption by ultimate consumers.
He further submitted that the coffee beans are normally imported in packing as per requirement of aforesaid hotels/ restaurants per their SOPs. The commodity imported by the petitioner is not meant for retail sale in the local markets nor petitioner deals in retail trading of the same, the petitioner enjoys good reputation in the business circles and always conducted his business strictly in according with law.
He further argued that petitioner imported aforesaid goods from Italian manufacturer as per requirement of purchase order and supplied to the hotels/ restaurants and on arrival of goods, petitioner filed goods declarations according with law.
Counsel said that during the examination, it was reported by the examination staff that details of ingredients of under-reference coffee beans/ coffee products are not printed in Urdu language on the packing and further that goods are not labeled as Halal as required in terms of IPO, 2016, therefore, petitioner was issued show cause notice for violation/ non fulfillment of condition and imposed penalty of Rs. 100,000 for purported violation.
He further pleaded the court that petitioner’s appeal is still pending as the same could not be heard as the post of one of the worthy member of the appellate tribunal is vacant.
Citing chairman FBR, collector of Customs Appraisement East, deputy collector of Customs (Group-I) Appraisement East as respondents, petitioner pleaded the court to suspend the operation of the impugned order-in-original during pendency of petitioner appeal before the appellate tribunal.
He further pleaded the court may restrain them from taking any coercive action against the petitioner including blocking of its NTN/ User ID, destruction or disposal otherwise if impugned consignment.
