KARACHI: A customs appellate bench of High Court of Sindh comprising Justice Abdul Rasool Memon and Justice Faisal Agha on Wednesday hearing eight identical petitions challenging collection of Sales Tax at import stage and seeking return of tax so collected, allowed interim relief as per judgment in CP-D 1089 of 2016 handed out by a division bench headed by Justice Munib Akhtar.

The bench earlier heard Ms Dil Khurram Shaheen advocate, counsel for Ajma Chemicals, Jullundar (Pvt) Ltd, Exin Chemicals Corp, Fusion Global Sourcing (Pvt) Ltd, Hexon Chemicals (Pv) Ltd, Quality Trade Link (Pvt) Ltd, Pak China Chemicals (Pvt) Ltd, Deploy (Pvt) Ltd, Five Star Fertilizers and Pak China Chemicals (Pvt) Ltd.

She relied on the case law and said interim relief given by the SHC’s division bench was still available to the petitioners in instant petitions. She prayed to the court to order the department to refund the amounts collected as Sales Tax.

The bench after hearing the petitioner’s counsel at length deferred further proceeding till Aug 13 ordering issuance of notices to the respondents for the said date.