MULTAN: The Model of Customs Collectorate is facing huge revenue collection loss due to pending cases stuck up in the various courts, including Supreme Court, Lahore High Court (LHC), Appellate Tribunal, Special Judge, Collector Appeal and Adjudication.
Multan Customs is being seriously concerned with continuing inordinate and unwanted delays in their legal cases because huge amount of revenue involved jammed in these cases.
Sources told Customs Today that about 215 various cases involving revenue amount of worth Rs1352.764 million of Multan Customs Collectorate is facing pendency in the various courts for their trial. These pending cases of Multan Customs 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 Multan Customs revenue collection is blocked 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 five various cases of worth millions 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 51 various cases of around Rs840.574 million undecided in the Lahore High Court Multan Bench for their final decision.
About 66 various legal cases of Multan Customs of worth Rs.328.664 million are pending in the appellate tribunal for their final verdict. As many as 108 various seizure cases of worth Rs183.526 million are waiting for their legal trial in the Customs Adjudication .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.
Sources told Customs today those extraordinary delays in the prosecution and protracted court trials of alleged offenders are endemic phenomenon in Pakistan and excessive delay also causes difficulties for law branch in defending such cases.
