KARACHI: An appellate bench of High Court of Sindh comprising Justice Munib Akhtar and Justice Sadiq Hussain Bhatti on Monday reserved judgment in a case of confiscation of 24000 kilograms of black tea allegedly smuggled from Kenya.
The bench earlier heard counsel for applicant Muhammad Khalid and others who through Special Custom Reference Application impugned the order passed by the Member Judicial II denying benefit of section 181 to them.
Ms. Dil Khurram Shaheen advocate appearing for the applicants submitted that respondents/defendants were bound to release the confiscated tea against payment of custom duty besides fine and penalty under SRO 499. She maintained that as per law, the custom authorities are bound to issue a notice under section 16 referring to any particular SRO. She maintained that raiding party of the customs seized the tea lying in bags outside the godowns/teashop on 7-6-2014 without a search warrant.
The bench told the counsel that as per facts of the case tea bags were lying outside/in front of the shops and no one came forward to claim the ownership at the relevant time. She relied on a number of judgments by the Supreme Court as well as orders passed by the SHC in different SCRA’s etc granting release of the confiscated items.
Kashif Nazeer Advocate appearing for the defendant department opposed the plea and referred to the item no 35 of the SRO 566 and submitted that powers of the adjudicating authority have been curtailed coupled with the measures to discourage the smugglers or buyers of smuggled items. He said that in case if an item is confiscated, it becomes property of the Pakistan Customs. He submitted that the black tea is a notified item and as such, benefit of section 181 and SRO 499 could not be claimed by the applicant.
The orders relied upon by the counsel for applicant has been impugned before the SHC; he submitted seeking copies of the orders relied upon by the applicant’s counsel.
The bench while reserving the judgment directed the counsel for applicant to supply copies to the Customs counsel within three days. The customs counsel was also directed to submit details of the SCRAs filed thereafter.