Law: Customs Act, 1969

Section: 79

Customs Act (IV of 1969)--S. 79(1), proviso [as amended by Finance Act, 2010]---Constitution of Pakistan, Arts.25 & 199---Constitutional petition---Declaration and assessment for home consumption or ware-housing---Petitioner had impugned vires of the amended Proviso to S.79(1) of Customs Act, 1969, which existed in the Act before amendment/ substitution---Unamended Proviso had provided that if before filing a goods declaration, the owner would make a request to the officer of customs, not below the rank of Assistant Collector that he was unable for want of full information, to make a correct and complete declaration of the goods, then such officer could permit the owner to examine the goods; and thereafter make entry of goods for filing a goods declaration---Said proviso had been amended to restrict the option of applying for the first examination to importers of used goods only---Proviso had further provided that the discretion for allowing such action would be with the officer not below the rank of an Additional Collector---Main contention of the petitioner was that such restrictions had violated the provisions of equality as provided under Art.25 of the Constitution, as no rational basis had been given for differentiating between the importers of new goods and used goods---No basis for the amendment had been given, except that amendment was made to restrict the facilities of filing the goods declaration after examining the goods by the importer only in case of used goods---Validity---Held, that amendment, the vires of which had been challenged was discretionary to the extent that it had restricted the option to apply for the first examination to the importers of used goods only and was not sustainable---High Court directed that words "in case of used goods" appearing in the first line of the substituted proviso to clause 'b' of S.79(1) of Customs Act, 1969, be deleted and that the deletion would be deemed to be always there---Order accordingly. I.A. Sharwani and others v. Government of Pakistan 1991 SCMR 1041 rel. Saleem Raza and 31 others v. The State PLD 2007 Kar. 139; Saleem Haji Rehmatullah Dada, Karachi v. Commissioner of Income-Tax Companies-V.…

Deprecated: trim(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /home/digixyei/sldsystempk.com/view/master-layout/view_case.php on line 492