LAHORE, Sept 11: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday issued notices to the Collector Customs and the PCSIR laboratories for Sept 17 when an importer complained that the sugar he imported from India was rotting at a railway godown because of a pending quality assurance test.

The Swera Traders, through a petition, said the Customs officials said they needed to collect a random sample of the sugar and sent it to the PCSIR laboratory for ascertaining whether or not it was fit for human consumption. With each passing day, the petitioner said, his profit was turning into loss because the imported 2,272 metric tons of sugar was not being released for sale in the market.

He said the officials could not resort to dilly-dallying the matter because they had filed a bill of entry for clearance of sugar after paying the required Customs duty. Besides, the sugar was of the quality being produced in Pakistan.

He said samples were sent to the PSCIR which was to post the results after tests on Sept 8, but those were still pending.

“The same sugar is being consumed in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and other countries. In the past, the sugar had been imported from the different countries but was never subjected to sampling,” the petitioner said.

The Trading Corporation of Pakistan had marketed 55,000 tons of the same sugar and was selling the same at utility stores after importing 746,000 metric tons from India, he claimed.— Reporter