Khawaja Shams-ul-Islam represented the company while Sohail Muzaffar Advocate, Deputy Collector Tahir Abbas, Principal Appraisers Tariq Aziz and Asad Aleem represented the Customs.
Sohail Muzaffar advocate submitted that the jurisdiction of the court is barred under section 217 of the Customs Act 1969 and the only remedy available to the plaintiff is to go into adjudication if they have any grievance at all. He cited a judgment by the honorable judge in an identical case.
He also submitted that the plaintiff in their letter dated himself admitted that value of consignment was wrongly declared to be Euro 1,130,000 by their clearing agent while actual value is Euro 7,380,000. The plaintiff also requested that the consignment be assessed at actual value for the purposes of determining the custom, duty and other taxes.
The Custom officials to a query by the court said that evidence has been collected about the willful filing of mis-declaration which may entail lodging of FIR.
The counsel for plaintiff refuting the allegations submitted that custom officials are foisting a case against the plaintiff and it was in fact error on the part of the clearing agent.
The bench after a detailed hearing dismissing the contempt of court application ordered the plaintiff to go for adjudication. The bench further ordered the plaintiff to pay rupees 220 million to Customs while custom was ordered to keep the money safe and not to encash the bank guarantee.
The court also ordered the customs to inform it of any FIR lodged in the case.
Master Beverages & Food Limited has approached High Court requesting initiation of contempt of court proceedings against MCC Port Qasim, as the MCC alleged to have defied the Court order and did not release their withheld consignment.
The authorities blocked the consignment comprising 56 containers on the charges of mis-declaration of value.
An official said that the company was misleading the court from the actual case wherein the company grossly under-declared the value of their consignment and get it released by paying additional tax on the under-declared value of the case.
According to details available with Custom News, Collector Customs Port Muhammad Bin Qasim, Moazzam Jah received a tip off after which on his directives team was constituted to detect the massive tax evasion scam. Additional Collector Muahmmad Tahir headed the committee with Deputy Collector Tahir Abbas and Principal Appraiser Ahmed Nawaz as members investigated into the case successfully.
MCC Port Qasim has served a contravention report on the importer. According to the report, M/s Master Beverages and Food Limited attempted to evade legitimate government revenue to the tune of millions of rupees through under stating the cost of an imported machinery/equipment and concealing the original invoice of higher value.