KARACHI: Noted lawyer, Haider Shaikh advocate has termed the protection given to Regulatory Duty (RD) given in the federal budget as illegal .
Reacting to the levy of custom duty, taxes etc, he said that Regulatory Duty was declared to be effective retrospectively. It will be construed as a tax and hence was in violation of Finance Act. He was of the view that the procedure was not followed and hence the protection given is also invalid. RD was aimed at protecting the local industry but not as a tax, he said adding that illegality was done to circumvent a judgment passed by High Court of Sindh under which government has to return the differential amount it collected and this amount to a total of rupees 2 billion or even more.