MULTAN: The Model Customs Collectorate is facing immense revenue collection loss due to pending of cases stuck up in various courts, including Supreme Court, Lahore High Court (LHC), Appellate Tribunal Inland Revenue, collectorate of Appeal and Adjudication.
A well-placed source told Customs Today that about 216 cases involving revenue amount of worth Rs1583 million of Multan Customs Collectorate are facing pendency in 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 during examination.
These undecided seizure and tax evasion cases of Multan Customs are still under progress due to delay and slow proceedings of cases at different forums.
Slow-moving proceedings and unnecessary delay in legal cases have also badly affected the revenue collection process of Multan Customs Collectorate to great extent and huge amount of revenue is blocked due to their court proceedings.
Sources informed that Multan Customs have 8 various cases of worth Rs25 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 54 cases of around Rs826 million pending in the Lahore High Court for their final decision.
Around 71 various legal cases of Rs318 million are pending in the Appellate Tribunal Inland Revenue for their final verdict. As many as 43 cases of worth Rs378 million are facing pendency in their trial. Multan Customs is also facing pendency in the 40 different cases of worth almost Rs36 million in their prosecution. 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 that Multan Customs will form special committee under the supervision of deputy collector which will make sure the conclusion of these pending cases as early as possible for the generation of handsome revenue.
