MULTAN: Massive amount of Rs2187.401 million of Customs Collectorate revenue stuck in litigation due to pending cases in the various courts including Supreme Court, Lahore High Court (LHC), Appellate Tribunal Inland Revenue (ATIR), Collector Appeal and Adjudication.
Sources told Customs Today that about 257 various cases involving revenue amount of Rs.2187.401 million of the Collectorate is facing pendency in the various courts for their trial.
Multan Customs is being seriously concerned with continuing inordinate and unwanted delays in their legal cases because huge amount of revenue involved blocked in these cases.
These pending cases of the Collectorate involved high and low profiles seizures, and contraventions formed after detection of mis-declaration at the time of import clearances and tax evasion found during audit. Huge amount of revenue is jammed due to these undecided cases. Law Branch of Multan Customs is making efforts for the early disposal of these cases but long-lasting complicated legal procedure causing delay.
These undecided seizure and tax evasion cases of Multan Customs are still under progress due to slow proceedings and unnecessary delay of cases at different forums. Slow progress in pending legal cases has also badly affected the revenue collection process of Multan Customs Collectorate to great extent and huge amount of revenue collection is blocked due to their court proceedings.
Multan Customs has almost 4 various cases of worth Rs.0.952 million pending in the Supreme Court of Pakistan for their final decision from several months. Huge revenue collections involved in the pending cases of Lahore High Court are still under adjudication. There are almost 57 various cases of around Rs.993.199 million undecided in the Lahore High Court Multan Bench for their final decision.
As many as 99 various seizure cases of worth Rs.867.442 million are under trial in the Customs Appellate Tribunal for their final verdict. About 84 various legal cases of worth Rs.323.578 million of Multan Customs Collectorate are waiting for their legal trial in the Customs Adjudication. Multan Customs has 3 different cases of worth Rs2.230 million pending in Customs Appeal for final decision.
Majority of these pending cases are still under process due to legal hindrance and unnecessary delay from respondents and few other factors are also involved in their delay for the settlement of these cases.
One of the major reasons behind these pending cases is shortage of court staff to precede these cases because judges and adjudicating officers are insufficient to precede these huge numbers of cases. Multan Customs is making efforts to dispose these pending cases for the collection of huge revenue stuck in different courts including Supreme Court, High Court, Appellate Tribunal and Customs Adjudication.
Sources told Customs Today that extraordinary delays in the prosecution and protracted court trials of alleged offenders are widespread phenomenon in Pakistan and excessive delay also causes difficulties for Customs law branch in defending such cases.
