KARACHI: A divisional bench of High Court of Sindh (SHC) comprising Justice Munib Akhtar and Justice Anwar Hussain on Friday ordered counsel for Pakistan Customs, Model Customs Collectorate, East and West to seek instruction regarding provisional release of a consignment of primary Silicon.

The bench was hearing a constitution petition filed by Parvez Sons. The petitioner’s counsel submitted that Customs Valuation and Collector Customs both are denying the provisional release of the consignment without assigning any reason. He submitted that dispute arised as he challenged the assessment of his consignment under old VR 779 of 2015 dated 5-12-2015 saying that said VR outlived as it is more than 90 days old.

The counsel for Customs Valuation citing a judgment passed by the Supreme Court of Pakistan submitted that as per judgment in Danish Jehangir case, Valuation department has no powers to allow release of the consignment under section 81 of the Customs Act 1969 and that this power rests with the Collectorate of the Customs concerned.

The counsel for petitioner said that Collector Customs is not exercising his powers and denied release of the consignment.

The bench then asked Masooda Siraj, counsel for Customs Valuation and Ilyas Ahsan, Principal Appraiser, Law to seek instructions from the respondents that why provisional release was not allowed to the petitioner. The bench then adjourned further proceedings till Sept 07.