KARACHI: Justice Muhammad Iqbal Kalhoro of High Court of Sindh (SHC) on Tuesday adjourned hearing of pre-arrest interim bail granted to 14 co-accused in 13 different FIRs registered at Customs Police station till July 13, 2016.
Earlier in the morning, the single judge heard Barrister Farogh A Naseem, counsel for petitioner who argued the bail application of accused. The counsel submitted that manifest and other documents were not submitted by the accused but by the shipper and shipping agent, M/s AMI in this case.
Kashif Nazeer advocate represented the respondent department while other accused were represented by a battery of lawyers including Khawaja Shamsul Islam.
The bench adjourned further proceeding till 12: 30 noon when it ordered that bail plea of main accused and other will be treated as part heard and fixed July 13 as tentative date for next hearing.
The bench was told that Barrister Farogh will not be in Pakistan at which the bench said that it will hear arguments by Khawaja Shamsul Islam on next date of hearing (after Eid-ul- Fitr) while of Barrister Farogh after summer vacations while the interim pre-arrest bail would continue.
The accused are seeking bail in dozens of FIRs registered against them for importing banned cloth from India showing the port of origin to be China thus committing mis-declaration.
The court however on a complaint by the counsel for respondent customs department ordered the applicants to join investigations. The purpose of interim bail is that the accused shall cooperate in the investigations, the single judge observed.
Meanwhile the hearing of a connected matter, a constitution petition filed by M/s AMI Pakistan Private Limited, shipping lines which brought in the banned item was also adjourned till after summer vacations.
The bench asked the leading counsel Barrister Khalid Anwar that if there is any urgency in the matter. As reply was in negative the bench with the consent of respondent custom officials adjourned the hearing till second week of August 2016.
Chief Collector South Abdul Rasheed Sheikh is personally monitoring this case.
Additional Collector Irfan Wahid, Deputy Collector Jam Imran, Principal Appraiser Ibrahim Khan, IO Ashfaq-ur-Rehman from MCC Appraisement East, Additional Collector Saleem Memon, Deputy Collector Rana Aftab, IOs Shahid Dasti, Javed Khalid, Mohammad Irshad, Zulfiqar Zaman and Mohammad Ahmed from MCC Appraisement West were also present in the court.
FBR has advised all field formations that cases of fiscal frauds should be pursued to the last forum and prosecution is ensured.