KARACHI: MCC Appraisement East has sanctioned an amount of Rs2.914 million on account of partial cash reward to the R&D East staff for detection and recovery of evaded revenue worth Rs67.493 million from M/s BBJ Pipe Industries.

The 40 percent amount of cash reward will be distributed among the R&D staff, 45 percent would go to Common Pool Fund to be utilized for welfare of staff and officers of the collectorate while 15 percent would go to the informer.

The MCC Appraisement East staff winning the reward include Deputy Collector Javaid Sarwer Shaikh, Principal Appraiser Shafiullah, Preventive Officer Malik Mohammad Hashim, Appraising Officers Syed Azam Shah, Mohammad Qadeer Khan, UDC Adil Rasheed, LDC Samar Hussain Naqvi and sepoy Maqbool Hussain.

According to the details of the case, M/s BBJ Pipes imported consignments declared to contain prime quality hot rolled steel coils from Taiwan under PCT heading 7208.3790, 7208.3890 and 7208.3990 attracting customs duty 11%, sales tax 17% and income tax 5.5% and sought clearance against concessionary rate of customs duty 5.0 percent under SRO 474(I)/2006 and SRO 565(I)/2006 and also claimed income tax exemption.

The consignments were cleared without physical examination. R&D MCC Appraisement East had information that certain importers were importing secondary quality goods under the guise of prime quality and evading the government revenue by claiming inadmissible benefits of concessionary SROs.

The consignment of M/s BBJ Pipes Industries was examined and found to be containing secondary quality goods. The consignment was accordingly seized. Importers voluntarily opted for payment of leviable duty and taxes.

The R&D Appraisement East served a manual contravention on M/s BBJ Pipes Industries, which does not damage the profile of importer and the green channel status remains intact. However, the Contravention submitted in the system eliminates the green channel status of accused importer.

Collector Adjudication Shazia Ikram however charged M/s BBJ Pipe Industries and imposed fines and penalty.

M/s BBJ Pipe Industries approached  the high Court against the order-in-original issued by Shazia Ikram. The court noted that customs authorities had withdrawn the contravention report and dismissed the order-in-original.

Sources said the Customs authorities had accorded an out-of-the-line favor to M/s BBJ Pipe Industries that would set a bad example and encourage unscrupulous elements.