NGO takes CDGK to court over new tax

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) issued notice to the provincial law officer and the City District Government, Karachi’s (CDGK) principal officer on Wednesday. Property cannot be sold, rented or transferred unless infrastructure tax is cleared.

A division bench, comprising Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, was hearing the application seeking urgent an hearing for a petition filed by NGO Pasban against the imposition of infrastructure tax in Karachi by the CDGK.

Petitioner Muhammad Ashraf Hussain submitted that the infrastructure tax was unjust, as there was no justification or provision in the Sindh Local Government Ordinance 2002 for it.

Hussain’s counsel Abdul Waheed Syed stated that the CDGK had no right to impose a tax on people who were already paying a number of taxes to the federal and provincial governments.

The CDGK was already collecting a number of taxes without any justifiable reasons and now it has converted same taxes into utility bill charges to mislead people, he stated.

The SHC division bench issued notice to the assistant advocate-general, Sindh, Adnan Karim, and CDGK counsel Manzoor Ahmed. The petitioner and respondents were directed to exchange counter affidavits and rejoinders before the next hearing.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 29^th, 2010.