KARACHI: Aurangzeb Hashmi, owner of M/s Mashallah Steel approached the Sindh High Court (SHC) seeking pre-arrest bail in a case registered by commissioner Inland Revenue, Zone-I Corporate being owner of unregistered steel re-rolling mill and supplying of finished taxable goods without payment of sales tax and income tax.
On 1 April 2020, a single bench heard the matter and granted him pre-arrest bail against the surety of Rs50,000 and directed him to surrender himself before the trail court within seven days without fail.
During the hearing, counsel for the above mentioned accused argued that his client has been falsely implicated in bogus and fake case in which there is no substantial evidence against him, who is ready to face trail, therefore, court may grant him bail.
It needs to be mentioned here that investigation officer submitted first information report against the above mentioned suspect before customs court and informed that during the investigation, it was revealed that the above mentioned suspect in involved in tax fraud as, no sales tax against taxable activity has been paid, therefore, the same stands recoverable from the persons involved in taxable fraud, the blacklisted person for the period under review manufactured M/s Bar (Sariya) for which person liable to pay sales tax Rs299,406,579.
He further submitted that thus, the blacklisted person Aurangzeb Hashmi and others, are operating the fraudster unit, have individually and jointly committed the tax fraud by operating re-rolling mill without obtaining sales tax and income tax registration by way of issuing fake sales tax invoices to inactive buyers, and fraudulently avoided to pay sales tax of Rs299,406,497 (not inclusive of sales tax, VAT and further tax as envisaged under section 3 of the sales tax act, 1990 by committing this tax fraud, thus have deprived government exchequer of its legitimate revenue of Rs299,406,579 and have violated the provisions of sales tax act, 1990.
After tge hearing, court had taken FIR into court record and directed investigation officer to complete investigation and submit progress report on next date of hearing.
