ISAF containers case: Supreme court orders forensic inquiry

[Veer]

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan (SC) on Tuesday ordered a forensic inquiry into the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) containers case.
A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was hearing the case.
Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Salman Siddique told the court that the issue of commercial containers had been forwarded to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
The chief justice said that NAB was not taking the initiative in the case and was waiting for others to do so.
An internal inquiry by FBR had revealed that around 29,000 containers bound for Afghanistan went missing in Pakistan – a significantly larger figure that the one mentioned in the report of the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO), which had quoted that 7,922 containers had gone missing.
Siddique told the Supreme Court that the FBR had to recover duty and tax evasion worth over Rs55 billion. The chief justice remarked that the Supreme Court also wanted that the state’s money should come back to where it belongs.
He added that clearance collectors have adjudicated 108 cases against 184 containers, so far, whereas total liability adjudged against them is Rs424 million (duty & taxes) with a penalty of Rs210 million.
The court has adjourned the hearing till January 2.
The issue of missing Nato/Isaf containers had been raised in the House by Senator Ilyas Bilour of Awami National Party (ANP), who had alleged that the National Logistics Cell was the main culprit. He further claimed that the trucks loaded at Port Qasim had been sold at Jodia Bazaar, Karachi.