Ending amnesty on NCP cars: Balochistan to challenge car scheme verdict

Speaker Jan Jamali asks provincial govt to file appeal in Supreme Court.

QUETTA: Balochistan Assembly speaker on Tuesday asked the chief minister to take up with the federal government the decision of Islamabad High Court (IHC) cancelling the amnesty scheme for cars brought into the country from Afghanistan.

Speaker Jan Muhammad Jamali also directed the provincial government to file an appeal in the Supreme Court against the IHC order.

PML-Q’s parliamentarian leader Jaffar Khan Mandokhail has said that a resolution should be passed against the IHC’s decision, as it affects the people of Balochistan.



The IHC had declared void the previous government’s decision to allow registration of non-customs duty paid (NCP) vehicles on payment of fee at discounted rates.

In the tribal areas along the borders of Afghanistan and Iran, people buy duty free cars and SUVs from Afghanistan and roam around freely only to be stopped when they enter the settled areas of the country. It is legal in tribal areas but not in the rest of the country.

In order to end the practice, the past government had introduced an amnesty scheme of registering these vehicles at discounted fee.

PML-Q’s Abdul Karim Nausherwani raised a point of order on cancelling the scheme.



Nausherwani said the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) has registered approximately 51,000 NCP vehicles and collected Rs16 billion. The IHC decision of cancelling these registrations is unbearable for the people of Balochistan.

PML-N’s provincial president Nawab Sanaullah Zehri said the people of Balochistan got their NCP vehicles registered legally and the decision particularly will affect the Baloch and Pashtun.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 26^th, 2013.