KARACHI: Importers, accused of stealing in-bonded goods, have refused to cooperate with the Customs staff and refused to comply with the orders of Sindh High Court, which automatically vacates the directives of the court to maintain status quo and no coercive action against these importers.[the_ad id=”31605″]Bonded Warehouse M/s General Services had approached Sindh High Court (SHC) praying an independent audit of the company and seeking compensation for the goods stolen from the warehouse.
Customs had lodged FIRs against several persons for illegal removal of in-bonded goods without filing of ex-bond GD, thus evading legitimate government revenue to the tune of hundreds of millions of rupees.
During the hearing of the case, the accused importers including M/s. Lucky Star Industries, M/s. Hannan Steel, M/s. Z.R Corporation, M/s. Steel Co and M/s. Idress Steel Co requested the Court for the stocktaking of the goods at the M/s General Services Bonded Warehouse in their presence.
In compliance of High Court of Sindh`s order, the officers of MCC Appraisement East, MCC Appraisement West and MCC Port Qasim were deputed to conduct stocktaking. However, the importers after reaching the warehouse refused to proceed with stocktaking exercise without the presence of plaintiffs i.e. M/s General Services themselves instead of their representative.
Despite repeated requests by the Customs staff to conduct stocktaking exercise, the orders of the High Court could not be complied with due to non-cooperative attitude of representatives of the importers, therefore, “maintain status quo and shall not take any coercive action against the plaintiff or the Defendants before the Court” may not be allowed to those importer who failed to cooperate in exercise of stocktaking.
It may be recalled MCC Appraisement East has lodged four separate FIRs against several persons for illegal removal of in-bonded goods without filing of ex-bond GD, thus evading legitimate government revenue to the tune of hundreds of millions of rupees.
Collector MCC Appraisement West Wajid Ali had assigned Additional Collector Rehmatullah Vistro and Principal Appraiser Shafiullah, Appraising Officer Ghani Soomro to pursue the information; Collector Appraisement East Nadeem Memon formed a team of Additional Collector Shafiqur Rehman, Deputy Collector Rana Arslan, Principal Appraiser Abdul Qayyum and Appraising Officer Shahid Hasan; and Collector Port Qasim Mumtaz Khoso assigned Deputy Collector Amjad Rajpar, Principal Appraiser Tariq Aziz and Appraising Officer Muhammad Zubair to pursue the case, which led to detection of this scam.
An official said the role of M/s General Services bonded warehouse was suspicious in the entire scam, but the investigations were stuck up as the case was in the Court.