RAWALPINDI: In a dispute involving Attock Refinery Limited (ARL) and the Federation of Pakistan, the Lahore High Court’s (LHC) Rawalpindi bench has overturned an earlier ruling and ordered that a single high court judge reconsider the issue.
An intra-court appeal (ICA) filed by ARL against a decision given by a single judge in chamber on November 10, 2020, was decided by a division bench consisting of Justice Sultan Tanvir Ahmad and Justice Jawad Hassan.
The court concluded that the prior decision had improperly assigned the issue to the Collector of Customs, who lacked the authority to decide whether a statute was constitutional.
The case started with ARL’s writ petition, which contested the validity of Sections 6(1) and 6(1A) of the Sales Tax Act of 1990 as well as Section 31(A) of the Customs Act of 1969.
Rehearing orders and determining that the customs collector lacked jurisdiction
Since higher courts have exclusive authority over constitutional concerns, the LHC bench decided that the single judge’s decision to transfer the case to the Collector of Customs rather than examine the constitutional challenge was incorrect.
The court cited important Supreme Court decisions, such as Lahore Development Authority v. Imrana Tiwana (2015 SCMR 1739) and Abdul Majeed Khan v. Maheen Begum (2014 SCMR 1524), to bolster its decision. These rulings reaffirm that judges without jurisdiction cannot decide whether a piece of law is legal.
The LHC panel ordered the single judge to rehearse the matter in compliance with the law and revived the writ petition. In addition, the court decided that all measures carried out in accordance with the earlier ruling are invalid from a legal standpoint.
Several hearings were held between December 2022 and January 2025 on the appeal, which had been pending since 2020.
The court issued its decision based on the record that was available because the respondents—including the Collector of Customs—failed to show up or give instructions despite efforts to resolve the disagreement.