KARACHI: Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar of High Court of Sindh on Thursday issued notices to Chairman, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and Additional Collector Customs Nadeem Memon inquiry officer in inquiry proceedings against Appraiser Customs, Zulfiqar Shaikh.
The petitioner questions the inquiry proceedings against him, under Efficiency and Disciplinary Rules on three allegations. The one was release of three containers from Port Qasim Karachi which were checked and detained at Fasialabad dry port by DIT.
The DIT found the discrepancy between the declared items and the ones found in the containers which proved that accused officer colluded with the importer in low paid custom duty and other taxes. As per second ground he failed to apply a particular Valuation Ruling.
Today when the petition came up for hearing, the counsel for petitioner submitted that petitioner was not given chance to defend himself. He was ill and requested the Inquiry Officer to defer the proceedings till he recovers but the Inquiry Officer is acting in haste and proceedings in a summary manner, the counsel submitted adding that petitioner is going to retire in August this year and inquiry at this juncture would harm his entire service and career. An appraiser is supervised by a Principal Appraiser and Goods Declaration (GD) was cleared by the Deputy Collector. If VR was not applied, the supervising officers must have been also show caused and proceeded along-with petitioner, the counsel said soliciting orders of resrtraint against the Inquiry Officer.
The bench after hearing the counsel for petitioner at length issued notices to the Chairman FBR and Inquiry Officer for Jun 20.