Dealers permitted to take uncleared vehicles parked at Peshawar dry port for years

PESHAWAR: The dealers of vehicles stuck at the Peshawar Dry Port heaved a sigh of relief on Monday as they got the permission to take the vehicles parked at the Railways property for years.

Up to 350 vehicles were parked for over five years at the dry port as the Customs authorities had refused to clear them because these were brought to be registered under an amnesty scheme for non-Customs Paid Vehicles (NPC) in 2013.

The Customs officials were of the opinion that the vehicles were imported to be registered under an amnesty scheme for the NPC vehicles announced by the previous Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-led federal government (2008-2013) to generate revenue. The vehicles were imported in March 2013 and were parked at the Peshawar Dry Port since then.

The officials had taken the stance that the imported vehicles did not qualify for the scheme and had therefore refused to register them.

Later, the dealers approached the federal ombudsman, who decided the case in their favour. The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) then approached the Appellate Tribunal against the decision, but failed to get the case decided in its favour.

The FBR later filed an appeal in the Peshawar High Court (PHC) against the decision, but it withdrew its appeal and directed the Customs officials to clear the vehicles after recovery of fine from the importers.

Though the Customs officials had issued clearance certificates to the dealers, it led to a row between the Customs and Railways authorities over the payment of parking and storage charges.

A Railways official said that they had refused to issue gate passes to the vehicles and demanded the dealers to pay the parking and storage charges amounting to Rs420 million.

He said the dealers challenged the decision in the PHC which decided the case in their favour and directed the Railways authorities to hand over the vehicles to the importers without charging any parking fee.

The railways authorities had then challenged the decision in the Supreme Court which upheld the verdict of the high court a few days ago.

The process took more than a year to complete. It prolonged the hardships of dealers. After the court decision, the Railways started handing over the vehicles to importers.

A Railways official said that more than 232 vehicles were issued gate passes and have been handed over to the dealers.

An importer, who had imported 15 vehicles to benefit from the scheme, said that he was overjoyed by the decision.

“We are happy that this long standing issue has been resolved amicably. We are not expecting to earn any profit from these vehicles, but it is enough for us to not incur any losses and sell the vehicles for the actual price we bought and recover the money we invested in the vehicles,” he added.

Another importer, pleading anonymity as he regularly deals with the Railways authorities and to avoid any hardship in future dealings with them, said the Railways got nothing from the deal but its actions delayed the hand-over of the vehicles to the dealers for a year. “We have heaved a sigh of relief as this issue has come to an end and we got possession of our vehicles,” he added.