KARACHI: MCC Appraisement East has established that the accused Muhammad Zubair, Waseem, Asif Iqbal Shaikh and staff of Multan Institute of Kidney Diseases (MIKD) are involved in the commission of offence which attract the provisions of certain Sections of the Customs Act, 1969 punishable under several clauses of Sales Tax Act, ITO 2001 other allied laws.
In the Interim Challan before the Court, MCC appraisement East submits the present case on the face of it is of complex nature requiring concerted efforts for currying out detailed scrutiny of documents on record in relation to 30 Consignments imported and got cleared in the past from the Collectorate of Customs Appraisement (East) in the name of M/s. MIKD Multan to determine the quantum of revenue loss besides examining the individuals and business entities whose name are disclosed by accused Asad lqbal Sheikh the determination of their role in the commission of offence or otherwise.
Investigation of the case is still continuing for want of information/record and verification of the various documents came on record during investigation so that investigation of the case could brought to the logical conclusion, hence, this Interim Challan for information and record of this Honourable Court.
It is established that Asad Iqbal of M/s Urooj Fatima Enterprise, and several others including Dr. Shakeel Ahmed of M/s. Multan Institute of Kidney Diseases (MIKD), Multan; Irfan Aziz Khan Niazi Proprietor of M/s Aair Medicals; Ali Hassan of M/s Strongman Medifur Systems Pvt. Limited; Nadeem and Taha Nadeem of M/s Taha Surgical; Muhammad Khaliq of M/s. Dawn Sports; and one Masood Lodhi are involved in importing and clearing miscellaneous high value goods under the garb of donated medical equipment by misusing the ID of MIKD, causing government revenue loss to the billions of rupees.
This is a high profile cases, and it is another achievement of the officers of Pakistan Customs. Former government of Imran Khan had made quite meritorious appointments on posts of strategic importance in Pakistan Customs. It resulted in minimized smuggling and significant increase in the quantum of legitimate trade.
It may be mentioned here that in terms of TEUs (20ft box), Pakistan’s overall import declined 5.5 per cent to 1.37 million TEUs in FY22 as compared with 1.45 million TEUs last fiscal year.
However, the collection of duty/taxes on these imports surged 31.6 per cent to Rs1.8 trillion compared with Rs1.4 trillion collected in the previous year. The value of all these imports clocked in at Rs8.8 trillion in FY22 compared with Rs5.78 trillion in FY21.
In the last couple of years PTI government pursued anti-smuggling campaign, and Customs formations (BS-21 and BS-20 PCS officers) were appointed very critically. Large scale crackdown was also launched on under-invoicing and mis-declaration, which resulted in increased revenue collection. Due to curbs on smuggling, cargo was switched to legal trade.
MIKD is a mega scam detected and under the instructions of Chief Collector Wajid Ali, Collector Appraisement West Tahir Qureshi, Collector Appraisement East Fayyaz Rasool and Collector Port Qasim Ashhad Jawwad aptly pursued the investigation.
The case was originally detected by MCC Appraisement West. A credible information was passed through Collector Appraisment West Tahir Qureshi to Additional Collector Yasir Kalwar and Deputy Collector Raza Naqvi that M/s Multan Institute of Kidney Diseases (MIKD) with active connivance of their authorized Clearing Agent Mass Traders are indulged in importing and getting cleared the items on suppressed value, which are not related to the declared objective of the Institute, in commercial quantity while availing exemption of duties and taxes under Special Classification Provision.
Deputy Collector Raza Naqvi formed a team comprising Principal Appraiser Ghulam Yaseen, AOs Taha Sher Behan, Muhammad Riaz and Rashid Ali to pursue the case and the wrongdoings were detected. They have inflicted heavy losses to the legitimate government revenue by availing the exemption which otherwise was not due.
It was further reported that few unscrupulous elements are selling the said items in the local market instead of bringing the same for in-house usage of the Multan Institute of Kidney Disease as per requirement of the exempting law.
Tahir Qureshi sent a team comprising Taha Sher, Abid Sarfaraz, Abdul Ghaffar Dogar to Multan and arrested Asad Shaikh.