KARACHI: Deciding a dispute in respect of steel sheets claimed to be of “Primary” nature while ascertained to be “Secondary” by Pakistan Customs, a division bench of High Court of Sindh (SHC) on Tuesday ordered sampling of the imported goods in the presence of Nazir of the court, customs and petitioner/importer.
The bench also ordered that after sampling, the goods be shifted to the public warehouse saving the importer of heavy damage incurred.
The bench comprising Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Junaid Ghaffar earlier heard Naveen Merchant advocate who maintained that 40 container imported by the petitioner are lying at the port and so far incurred demurrage worth rupees 10 million.
Kashif Nazeer advocate counsel for the Pakistan Customs informed the bench that case is of mis-declaration. He suggested random sampling of the goods with the condition that results would apply to the entire consignment. He opposed the shifting of the goods to the customs bonded warehouse and said it should be shifted to a public bonded warehouse. The bench rejected the same and said goods are imported by a commercial importer and thus cannot be in-bonded with a private warehouse. The public warehouse is in your control, said the bench.
It is on paper sir, Customs lawyer replied promptly. The bench later ordered the customs to draw samples in the presence of Nazir of SHC and petitioner. A difference of 20 per cent would occur in terms of custom duty and other taxes if the imported goods were found to be secondary in nature.