KARACHI: The Customs Appellate Tribunal  Karachi, bench I headed by Mohammad Yahya, Member Technical I vacated a show cause notice issued against appellant Haris Trading Company, Peshawar.

The tribunal was seized with hearing of three appeals filed under Section 194-A of Customs Act 1969 challenging an order passed by Additional Collector Customs, Model Customs Collectorate (Exports).

According to details, Custom issued a show cause notice against M/S Haris Trading Company, which filed a Goods Declaration (GD) for export of Marble Blocks. The exporter availing the facility of self assessment  and clearance system valued the consignment at US $ 5998 ( Rupees 593762) against Form “ E” , The risk management system of Pakistan Customs selected the subject GD for examination and assessment during which it was found that Exporter has not uploaded the Form “ E”, an essential piece of documents for export. The exporter was asked to upload the Form “E “but they failed to do so. The examination also revealed that identical goods are being cleared and assessed at a rate of US $0.15/ Kg whereas the exporter assessed the same at less value of US $ 0.35 per Kg. The value declared was US $ 5998 whereas assessed value was US $ 25,200 (rupees 2494548) and the net difference found was US $ 19202 (rupees 1900805). In case the detection was not made, exporter would have succeeded in causing loss to exchequer in terms of Foreign Exchange earned against the consignment meant for export. The Customs officials held the exporter guilty of violating  section 32 (1) ( C ), 32 A (1)  155 –M (1/a) section 131 (1/a) of Customs Act 1969  read with section 22 of the FERA ( Foreign Exchange Regulation Act)  1947 and issued a show cause notice to them on 8-5-2014. Later on the basis of the show cause notice Additional Collector Customs, (Exports) Karachi passed an order on 16-8-2014 imposing a penalty of rupees  50,000 besides asking the Assistant Commissioner to call Form “E” from the exporter and in case of failure brought the matter into the knowledge of  Export Intelligence Branch “.

The applicant filed the instant appeal against the order and deciding the same, Appellate Tribunal held that  sections under which applicant was show caused are not attracted and hence the order of the adjudicating officer suffers from legal infirmities. The tribunal also rejected the charges under FERA and said at the most the Custom Authorities can refer the case to State Bank of Pakistan for violation of FERA if any.