KARACHI: A two-member bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) comprising Justice Shafi Muhammad Siddiqui and Justice Agha Faisal disposed of a constitutional petition filed by M/s Black Gold Industries seeking release order for its imported consignment of mixed iron steel scrap.
On 22 November 2021, during the hearing, Kafeel Ahmed Abbasi deputy attorney general, Hussain Bohra assistant attorney general appeared before the court, Rana Sakhawat Ali hold brief for Muhammad Rashid Ali for customs department.
After the hearing, court observed in its order that “this petition challenges regulatory duty which issue perhaps has been dealt with decided by the division bench of this court in terms of judgment reported as 2018 PTD 861 in the case of Premier Systems Pvt vs Federal of Pakistan, through the petitioner’s counsel is called absent but since the issue is covered by reported judgment of a division bench, we deem it appropriate to dispose of this petition on the same reasoning and rational and also the conclusion drawn therein which shall apply mutatis mutandis in the instant petition as well. Petition along with listed applications stands disposed of in the above terms”.
Earlier, counsel for the above-mentioned importer argued that petitioner is engaged in import of different items, through its professional excellence, hard work and dedicated customer service, the petitioner has developed a substantial clientele all over the country.
Counsel argued that they being commonly aggrieved by the arbitrary, illegal and mala fide actions of the respondents in particular the purported protection afforded to illegally levied regulatory duty by the finance act, 2018 and they were earlier aggrieved by the arbitrary illegal and unconstitutional acts of the respondents, whereby the respondents had issued SRO 1035(1)/2017 dated 16/10/2017 and imposed regulatory duty on a number of items including the items imported by the petitioner.
He argued that said petitioner was allowed by SHC by judgment with direction to refund the amount of duty levied and charged, however, customs officials refused to refund its duty which was paid by them on regulatory duty.
Citing Sectary Ministry of Finance, Chairman Federal Board of Revenue, Collector of Customs Appraisement East, Collector of Customs Appraisement West, Collector of Customs Appraisement Port Muhammad Bin Qasim as respondents, he pleaded the court to direct them to immediately return their security of refund the amount equivalent thereof along with markup collected by this court in the earlier round of litigation.
They also pleaded the court may restrain then from taking any action for enhancing the securities furnished by the petitioner with the customs or nazir of the court or assessment of consignments of the petitioners on the basis of purported validation law in respect of the regulatory duty for the relevant period as this court has very graciously pass in its orders.
