Law: Customs Act, 1969

Section: 18B

Customs Act (IV of 1969)--- ----S.33---Constitution of Pakistan (1973), Art. 199---Constitutional petition---Refund of service charges---Claim for---Petitioner submitted 128 refund claims, which remained pending without any progress, petitioner filed constitutional petition and High Court directed authorities to dispose of claims of petitioner within two months---Claims of petitioner having not been decided within period of two months, petitioner filed application for contempt of the Court---Authorities, in the meanwhile, having rejected all claims of petitioner, appeal was filed by petitioner before Customs, Excise and Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal which after allowing three appeals, directed the Authority to decide case of petitioner within thirty days on merits---Even after direction of Tribunal claims having remained pending, petitioner filed complaint with Federal Tax Ombudsman in respect of remaining undecided claims not covered by appellate order of the Tribunal---Finally after dismissal of review application, petitioner had filed present constitutional petition---Maintainability of the constitutional petition was challenged on the ground that petitioner had not availed statutory remedy before filing of constitutional petition---Validity---Reference application on the point of law could be submitted before the High Court against order of the Appellate Tribunal---Independent and impartial dispensation of justice by the Appellate' Tribunal in the case was evident from the fact that in earlier rounds of litigation, Appellate Tribunal set aside the orders passed by Additional Collector Customs---Contention of petitioner was that petition could be filed challenging the order of Additional Collector on merits after rejection of complaint by Federal Tax Ombudsman---Held, remedy provided in the statute was not illusory as Appellate Tribunal was not under administrative control of Central Board of Revenue, but was performing quasi-judicial functions under the administrative control of Ministry of Law and Justice---Even on merits, petitioner had no case, because refund on account of service charge was not to be made automatically---Sufficient opportunity was…

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