ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has been prayed to announce judgment on 262 containers detained at the Karachi port since last year.
A division bench of the Sindh High Court (SHC) comprising Justice Aqeel Abbasi and Justice Mahmood A Khan in December 2019 had allowed the safe transit of 262 containers of sugar, detained at port on grounds of being unfit for human consumption, to Afghanistan in accordance with the relevant laws. The chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) challenged this order in the Supreme Court. A three-member bench, headed by Justice Umar Ata Bandial, on 20 February 2020 had reserved the judgment.
Nisar A Mujahid, who filed the application on behalf of M/s Farid Asif Ltd, he submitted that the federal government, while taking "advantage" of the absence of any interim orders, in May of this year opened the containers containing the sugar consignment for examination, despite pendency of the instant appeal.
"The present condition of the sugar consignment is not known and it is apprehended that the recent record rains in Karachi may have severely damaged sugar, which may result in an additional loss of millions of dollars to the respondents the application said."
"Moreover, demurrage and detention charges are accruing on the detained containers on [a] daily basis since the detention thereof in June, 2019, causing further losses to the respondents for no fault of theirs," said the application.
The SHC in its judgment had also directed the concerned authorities to issue a delay detention certificate to two importers in accordance with the relevant laws, and hoped that the exercise would be done in 15 days, a short order of the bench stated.
The Federation of Pakistan through the chairman FBR, Collector of Customs, Director General Directorate General of Transit Trade, etc, had been made respondents in the petition.
M/s Farid Asif Limited and M/s Sadiq Muslim Limited, based in Afghanistan, had filed a petition in the Sindh High Court. It was their contention that they imported 354 containers of sugar under the Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement (APTTA) 2010 from India in June 2019.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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