KARACHI: Justice Salahuddin Panwhar of High Court of Sindh on Tuesday adjourned hearing of a contempt of court application filed by M/s Master Beverages & Food Limited against Pakistan Customs, MCC Port Muhammad Bin Qasim (PMBQ).
The counsel for applicant pressed for a detailed hearing of contempt of court application but Sohail Muzaffar Advocate representing Custom authorities of PMBQ requested the court to put off hearing allowing him time to respond to the allegations in contempt of court application.
The applicant has approached High Court requesting initiation of contempt of court proceedings against MCC Port Qasim, as the MCC alleged to have defied the Court order and did not release their withheld consignment.
The court had ordered MCC Port Qasim to release the consignment of M/s Master Beverages & Food Limited after securing additional duty. The company had approached High Court of Sindh submitting that the authorities were demanding additional customs duty on their consignment.
However, the authorities blocked the consignment comprising 56 containers on the charges of mis-declaration of value.
An official said that the company was misleading the court from the actual case wherein the company grossly under-declared the value of their consignment and get it released by paying additional tax on the under-declared value of the case.
Meanwhile, MCC Port Qasim has served a contravention report on the importer. According to the report, M/s Master Beverages and Food Limited attempted to evade legitimate government revenue through under stating the cost of an imported machinery/equipment and concealing the original invoice of higher value.
According to the details of the case, M/s. Master Beverages and Food Limited imported a consignment said to contain “Partial Shipment out of supply of a water/beverage filing line plant with standard accessories” from M/s. Krones AG, Germany and sought clearance through clearing agent M/s. S.M. Sadiq & Sons claiming exemption of Sales Tax in excess of 10 percent at declared value of Euro 1.13 million.
Scrutiny of the scanned documents revealed that declared value had been grossly under invoiced by the importer as compared to the values of similar/identical goods imported by other beverages companies from the same shipper M/s. Krones AG, Germany.
The investigation and verification from Al-Baraka Bank and shipper M/s Krones confirmed that the company had grossly under0invoiced the shipment. M/s Krones confirmed that the value of said plant cost 7.38 million euros, while imported mentioned the cost to Euro 1.13 million.