KARACHI: Hearing a constitution petition filed by a driver whose Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) was used for exports worth six hundred thousand US Dollars following which his bank account was freezed, a divisional bench of High Court of Sindh (SHC) sought comments from the FBR that how he was registered with the tax and other relevant authorities.
Earlier counsel for Pakistan Customs Masooda Siraj said that order in original had been passed against the petitioner Muhammad Jameel as all documents show him to be an exporter.
The counsel for petitioner denied the factum drawn the attention of the court towards non-submission of comments by the respondents. He said petition was filed more than a year back and till now respondents have not filed comments. He said that even today, the petitioner is working as a driver and drawing a salary of rupees 20,000. He urged the court to order the respondents particularly FBR to find out that how he was registered as owner of a company, how NTN (National Tax Number) was obtained based on his CNIC. This is a pro bono case, submitted the counsel urging the court to order a detailed inquiry into alleged mis-use of his CNIC. He never applied for a NTN, it needs probe that how he was registered without signing single documents, he asked. The bench at this stage referred to a number of cases and said alley by is not acceptable as in number of cases companies were found to be registered in the name of domestic servants, drivers etc. The bench specifically referred to a case in which gold export worth 25-30 billion was detected by the authorities.
The bench then asked the respondents to find out that whether any export was made earlier against the said NTN. To a query by the court counsel for petitioner submitted that one of his associates visited the place mentioned as office of the fake company but no one or company by the name 7 Star Trading Company was found.
The bench later put off further hearing to an unspecified date.