KARACHI: Pakistan Customs asked the Sindh High Court (SHC) to reject the constitutional petition of a developer, who is facing charges of duty/taxes evasion to the tune of Rs 21.581 million on import of solar led street lights.
Deputy collector customs (Law) Ali Waheed Khan submitted the reply on behalf of collector of Customs Adjudication-II to a division bench of the SHC in response to a petition filed by Mirza Jamil Baig, who challenged show-cause notice issued to him for evading duty and taxes.
In the reply, it was stated that the petition was not maintainable as the matter was pending before the Customs Adjudication officer and the petitioner should appear before the officer concerned to defend himself.
The court was told that the petitioner mis-declared the PCT Heading and got cleared his consignment under PCT Heading 4905.1090 which does not cover lights. The lights imported by the petitioner were classifiable under PCT Heading 9405.4090 and were not exempted from sales tax. The petitioner was only given exemption from customs duty on his consignment.
Earlier, the petitioner’s counsel had submitted that his client was awarded a contract for installation of solar lights in municipals and towns of Sukkur by Sindh’s Rural Development Department.
Subsequently, he had imported a consignment of 1,060 solar led street lights and got the consignment cleared, getting exemption from duty and general sales tax as imported items fall within category of renewable source of energy and therefore, the government had exempted duty and tax on their import.
He said that the petitioner imported another consignment containing 4,120 solar led street lights and filed general declarations along with a certificate of Alternative Energy Development Board (AEDB) regarding exemption from duty and tax.
However, he lamented that his consignment was not cleared. Instead he said the petitioner was issued show-cause notice for evading Rs 21.581 million through mis-declaration and claiming exemption from payment of customs duty and general sales tax on his first consignment. The petitioner pleaded the court to declare that the solar led street lights imported by him are exempted from custom duty and tax. The court was requested to quash the show-cause notice.
