KARACHI:- A division bench of High Court of Sindh (SHC) comprising Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Justice Junaid Ghaffar on Thursday ordered Pakistan Customs, Preventive, Model Custom Collectorate Karachi to decide the issue of duty on imported Distilled Fatty Acid by Nov 08.
The order came on a request by counsel for petitioner Gamalux Oelochemicals who said that Customs Preventive is not adjudicating application regarding exemption of tax duty.
The petitioner maintained that they are the manufacturer, importer, exporter and are in the business of Distilled Fatty Acid since 12 years. The petitioner maintained that it imported 2998.337 tons of Palm Acid Oil from Malaysia. The consignment was in bulk and purchased from Mena Jaya Oil and Fats SDN, BIID, Malaysia. A Certificate of Origin was also obtained and presented to the Customs authorities with the GD for assessment of the custom duty.
The petitioner maintains that consignment import falls under SRO 1261 (1) of 2007 and falls under Malaysia Pakistan Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement for Closer Economic Partnership (MPCEPA) and thus has a zero rate of duty.
The petitioner maintained that consignment was held illegally and Preventive was attempting to levy custom duty at a rate of 10 percent.
Today when the matter was taken-up by the court, the counsel for petitioner said prayed to the court that custom officials are delaying the assessment. As no one from the Preventive was present, the bench asked Ilyas Ahsan, counsel for Pakistan Customs to convey the order of the court to officer concerned to make the assessment. The bench then adjourned further proceedings until Nov 10.