KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (LHC) has directed the customs authorities to conditionally release the AKK Enterprises’ consignment of prime quality pre-painted steel sheets.
A division bench of the SHC comprising Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Junaid Ghaffar directed the petitioner to either deposit differential amount of duty and taxes and penalty for mis-declaration as adjudicated in the ONO with Nazir of the court for release of the goods or if it does not wish to do so, approach the department for shifting of the goods to customs bonded warehouse and the same shall be facilitated and allowed by the authorities without fail. It disposed of the petition.
Petitioner AKK Enterprises submitted that it had imported prime quality pre-painted steel sheets and filed general declaration for assessment of customs duty and taxes.
However, the customs authorities disputed the quality of goods, saying they were secondary quality attracting higher rate of duty and did not release the goods nor they shifted the goods from the port to customs bonded warehouse.
The petitioner’s counsel said the importer was issued show-cause notice for mis-declaration and subsequently it contested its case before the customs adjudicating authorities. An Order-in-Original was issued, imposing penalty on the importer.
He had challenged the ONO before the Collector of Customs Appeals and in the meantime he requested the authorities to shift the goods to the warehouse to save demurrage charges as they are lying on the port for last five months but to no avail.
Therefore, he requested the court to order the authorities to shift the goods to the warehouse.
