ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court set aside the Sindh High Court (SHC) judgment relating to the determination of the value of imported consignments of tyres and tubes to be used for cars and trucks.
A three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and comprising Justice Irfan Saadat Khan and Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi, set aside the SHC’s impugned judgment dated 29.02.2024 and restored the judgment of the Customs Appellate Tribunal, Karachi, dated 26.07.2022.
The petitioners (importers of tyres and tubes), being aggrieved by the findings of the Director General of Customs Valuation, Karachi, in the Orders-in-Revision in respect of Valuation Ruling No. 1543/2021, Valuation Ruling No. 1544/2021 and Valuation Ruling No. 1545/2021, all dated 03.08.2021, filed appeals before the Tribunal. The Tribunal held that the above-mentioned Valuation Rulings had been issued in disregard of the express provisions of the Customs Act, 1969, and were therefore declared to have been issued without lawful authority and to have no legal effect.
Consequently, the impugned Orders-in-Revision were held to be illegal and without lawful authority and set aside, with further directions that the subject consignments be valued at the declared values for the assessment of duty and taxes, as per the dicta laid down in the judgment cited as Goodwill Traders, Karachi v Federation of Pakistan (2014 PTD 176).
The respondent department, being aggrieved, filed Special Customs Reference Applications before the Division Bench of the Sindh High Court, which set aside the Tribunal’s order and decided the matter in favour of the Customs department.
The judgment, authored by Justice Aqeel, stated that the order passed by the Customs Appellate Tribunal was based on findings of fact supported by uncontroverted documents produced by the petitioners before the Customs authorities. It added that the legal position relating to the application of the sequential order for the determination of customs value was also based on Supreme Court judgments, which were in line with the scheme of law envisaged under Section 25 of the Customs Act, 1969.
It noted that the High Court, while exercising reference jurisdiction under Section 196 of the Customs Act, 1969, could not dispute such findings of fact in a summary manner, particularly when no such specific question had been formulated by the respondent department in this regard.
It is a well-settled principle of law that the Customs Appellate Tribunal is the final forum for the determination of facts in tax and customs matters, and its findings of fact cannot be disturbed by the High Court under its reference jurisdiction unless it is shown that such findings are perverse, based on surmises and conjectures, or entirely unsupported by evidence on record.
The apex court noted that, in the present case, no specific question relating to findings of fact being perverse or contrary to the record was raised by the respondent department for decision by the High Court, whereas the six questions of law proposed by the respondent department were related to the powers of the Director and Director General of Customs Valuation under Sections 25A and 25D of the Customs Act, 1969, respectively.
The judgment observed that the specific finding of fact recorded by the Customs Appellate Tribunal was that certain documents filed along with the Goods Declaration by the importers; i.e., commercial invoices, banks’ letters of credit, and C&F price lists of the subject goods issued by foreign exporters, were not controverted by the respondent department at any stage of the case. It further observed that the customs value of the subject goods appearing in the impugned Valuation Rulings had been determined without adopting the sequential order provided under Section 25 of the Customs Act, 1969, while directly applying the fallback method under Section 25(9) of the Customs Act, 1969.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026