PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Thursday stayed the recovery of sales tax from lawyers by the provincial government by including legal profession in the schedule of the Finance Act 2013.

Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Roohul Amin Khan Chamkani suspended the Aug 12, 2014, impugned notification of the provincial government and issued notices to the government through its chief secretary and KP Revenue Authority directing them to file response to a petition filed by the KP Bar Council on the matter.

The bar council has filed the petition through its secretary, Naeem Pervez, saying lawyers had already been paying income tax, a federal tax, as well as professional tax imposed by the provincial government since 1990.

Qazi Jawad Ahsanullah Qureshi, lawyer for the petitioner, said the imposition of sales tax on lawyers amounted to double taxation as they had already been paying income tax and professional tax.

Asks govt to respond to plea against inclusion of legal profession in Finance Act’s schedule

He said through Finance Act 2013 the provincial government had imposed 16 percent sales tax on different services not including legal profession.

The lawyer said the impugned notification was issued in 2014 and through it legal profession was included in Second Schedule, which included the professions liable to sales tax.

He said Section 19 of the Act stated that sales tax could be imposed on those services related to economic activity and that the legal profession was not related to economic activity and instead, it was related to the provision of justice.

Qazi Jawad said Section 22 of the Act had defined economic activity and in that definition, legal profession didn’t fall.

He added that the imposition of sales tax on lawyers would affect poor litigants as the said tax would be passed onto them.

The lawyer said recently, the KP Revenue Authority had issued notices to lawyers asking them to register themselves with the authority for the purpose of payment of the controversial sales tax.

He added that the said notices were unjustified and therefore, the bench should declare the impugned notification illegal and unconstitutional.

ACTION ORDERED: A high court bench comprising Justice Qaiser Rasheed and Justice Ikramullah Khan directed the Peshawar Cantonment Board to act against contractors burning solid waste instead of property disposing it of.

The bench, which is called as Green Bench as it deals with environment related cases, directed the cantonment executive officer to submit his report before Oct 27 about what action it had taken against the concerned contractors.

It also issued directives to the communication and works department to repair Peshawar’s dilapidated roads as they’re causing environmental degradation.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by Peshawar lawyers Ghulam Shoaib Jally and Hamad Hussain Yousafzai to seek orders for setting a deadline for the government and relevant agencies to crack down on pollution of all sorts.

The petitioners said a recent report of World Health Organisation revealed that Peshawar was the sixth most polluted city across the world.

They said unfortunately, Peshawar city had long been polluted though different departments had been established to tackle pollution.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2016