KARACHI: A customs appellate bench of High Court of Sindh restrained the custom officials from taking any coercive action against petitioner company Home Services without proper adjudication and affording an opportunity of hearing.
The bench earlier heard arguments by Rayan Zia advocate assisted by Imran Iqbal Khan advocate of law firm “Expert Law” who maintained that petitioner imported 10 consignments of computer parts and got them cleared after payment of taxes, duty etc in 2017-18. The customs now in 2019 have re-assessed the same on the basis of audit observations in compliance of Boards (FBRs) instructions vide letter no. 3 (1) Valuation/2018 (Vol II) dated 15-5-2019 whereas the petitioner has not been confronted with such letter nor the respondents have any authority to re-assess the consignments of the petitioner. The counsel further argued that no adjudication proceedings taken place but respondents are threatening the petitioner for involving them in criminal cases on account of alleged money laundering.
The bench after detailed arguments ordered issuance of pre-admission notices to Collector Customs East and Collector Customs, Preventive besides Secretary FBR for Nov 14 with direction to not to take any coercive action against the petitioner without proper adjudication in accordance with law.