KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) issued notices to the customs department and deputy attorney general on a petition filed by M/s Faheem Enterprises and M/s Black Gold Engineering for seeking refund of the amount collected by respondents from the petitioners in the name of regulatory duty under Section 18 (3) of the Customs Act, 1969.
While the hearing of petition on August 1, 2018, a two-member bench, headed by Justice Abdul Rasool Memon directed them to file their para wise comments on next date of hearing.
During the hearing, counsel for the above mentioned importers argued in their constitutional petition that petitioners are engaged in import of different items, through their professional excellence, hard work and dedicated customer services, the petitioners have developed 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 petitioners.
He argued that said petitioners were allowed by SHC by judgment with direction to refund the amount of duty levied and charged, however, customs officials denied to refund their duty which were paid by them on regulatory duty.
Citing Secretary 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 amount equivalent thereof along with markup collected by this court in the earlier round of litigation.
They also pleaded the court to restrain them from taking any action for encasing the securities furnished by the petitioners 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.
