KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has dismissed a criminal appeal filed by accused Tikka Khan, challenging Custom Court’s order which had directed the officials to send him back to jail when he appeared before the court after issuing non-bailable warrants in Rs 97.188 million duty/taxes evasion case.
During the hearing, no one appeared before the court on behalf of the accused/applicant, therefore, the court dismissed his application and observed in its order “history of the case shows that on the first date of hearing no one appeared on behalf of the accused/applicant, today is also same position. It appears that the applicant’s counsel has lost interest to pursue that instant matter, which is dismissed for non-prosecution along with listed applications”.
Earlier, counsel for the accused/applicant stated in his appeal that he had gotten bail from Custom Court and went to Peshawar, where he got illness; however, during his absence, the court issued his non-bail able warrants and when he came back from Peshawar on October 31, 2015 appeared before the custom court then custom court rejected bail and sent him back to jail.
He pleaded the SHC may set aside impugned order of the Customs Court. Case was registered by the customs authorities against him as FIR 03/2015 under Section 2 (s) 16, 32 (1), 32 a, 121, 127, 18, 29, 209 of the Customs Act, 1969, read with 9 (xi), 11 (IV) of CGO 10/2012 dated July 01, 2012 further read with bonded carrier licensing rules of IS-chapter VIV of chapter-XXV of the custom rules notified vide SRO 450(1)/2001 dated 18/1/2001 further read with Section 3 (1) of Imports and Export Control Act, 1959 and import policy & procedure order 2012-13.