The Peshawar High Court has suspended FIA call-up notices issued to several industrial units operating in the erstwhile FATA/PATA areas in connection with an inquiry concerning alleged tax fraud. The Court has sought responses from the relevant authorities and directed that the impugned notices remain suspended until the matter is taken up again.
At the centre of the dispute is an important jurisdictional question. The petitioners have argued that matters relating to tax assessments, exemptions, consumption certificates, quotas and audits are governed by the Sales Tax Act, 1990 and the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, and therefore cannot ordinarily be investigated through general criminal proceedings unless a specific scheduled offence falling within FIA jurisdiction is first established.
The case may therefore have significance beyond the industries directly involved. It raises the broader issue of how far criminal investigative agencies can intervene in matters that primarily arise from the administration of tax statutes, particularly where specialised mechanisms for assessment, audit and adjudication already exist under tax law. For now, however, the Court has only suspended the notices; the jurisdictional questions remain subject to final adjudication.