KARACHI: A divisional bench of High Court of Sindh (SHC) comprising Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Justice Zulfiqar Ahmed Khan on Wednesday adjourned the hearing of a constitution petition filed by Customs Clearing Agency Sharjeel Jamal until March 01.
Pooja Kalpna advocate appeared for the petitioner who alleges harassment by Pakistan Customs, Appraisement, West.
According to petitioner, Custom authorities have registered more than a dozen FIRS’ against him and more are in the pipeline due to enmity, as he is a witness against senior Custom Officers and officials and complainant before all forums concerned.
Talking to Custom News, Sharjeel Jamal maintained that the respondent Customs department ascertained no allegation as to the loss of revenue to government kitty until date. He claimed that he has filed Goods Declaration (GDs) in alleged cases as per manifest of the importer. He said that only allegation against him is that he has imported the consignments from India but in GD the port of origin was shown to be of China. There is no difference in duty items/consignments in disputes are imported either from China or from India. The item was in the import list and do not fall within the category of banned items.
The agent like me who are contributing huge sums to the government coffers are being harassed while lawyers are being paid hefty sums to plead cases by Customs. No revenue would be added to the government coffers cases against me are in fact “dis-service”. He maintained that he has appeared before the Customs Committee comprising Shahid Ibrahim Dasti and Ghulam Nabi Kumboh (appraising Officers) and made a statement denying the allegations as well as no loss of revenue. He said that he has not obtained bail as unless a Customs court issue Non Bailable Warrants of arrest against him, Custom could not arrest him. A divisional bench of SHC has ordered the Customs not to take any coercive against against me, he said.
He said Customs has not lodged a single FIR in identical nature of cases in more than 6000 cases but he was being targeted which is discriminatory on the part of the Pakistan Customs.
The Customs has stated that they first want to arrest me after which they would lodge the cases; he alleged adding that as he has brought cases of corruption to the light, a few Custom officials are settling score with him.
The Custom department spokesman rejected the allegations by the Sharjeel Jamal. They said that fiscal fraud and mis-declaration has been established against the accused in thousands. A committee has been formed to investigate into these cases. The local markets were flooded with Indian fabric in such a huge quantity that local industry was driven to the brink of closure. The Custom officials were working on Afghan Transit trade etc to find out the reason and lastly they found that right under their nose, Sharjeel and his accomplices were involved in this crime.
Since 2005, the custom authorities were be fooled and the accused persons blatantly violated import policy. custom officials maintained rejecting any malafide or discrimination against the accused/petitioner Sharjeel Jamal. The amount of custom duty, fine, penalty etc is so big that ascertaining the amount recoverable is a gigantic task. It is a time consuming exercise and cannot be done overnight, they said.