Customs

Customs Appeals in Pakistan: Collector (Appeals), the Customs Appellate Tribunal and References to the High Court

A customs dispute rarely ends with the order-in-original. Whether the issue is a valuation uplift, a classification change, a refund rejection or a penalty for misdeclaration, the importer or exporter and the Collectorate both have a statutory appeal route, and every stage now runs to short and strictly applied deadlines. The Finance Act, 2024 rewrote the reference to the High Court, and the Finance Act, 2025 changed the Tribunal's limitation period and attached a security condition to stays. Anyone searching for the best customs lawyer in Karachi to challenge an order usually needs one answer first: which forum, within how many days, and what must be paid or secured meanwhile. This guide sets out that route as the Customs Act stands after the Finance Act, 2025.

Which forum hears the first appeal

The first appellate forum depends on the rank of the officer who passed the order, not on the amount in dispute.

• Collector (Appeals), section 193. Decisions or orders of an officer below the rank of Additional Collector under sections 33 (refunds), 79, 80 (assessment), 131, 179 (adjudication) and 195 are appealable to the Collector (Appeals). Both the affected person and an officer of customs may appeal.
• Customs Appellate Tribunal, section 194A. Orders passed under section 179 by an officer of the rank of Additional Collector or above go directly to the Tribunal. So do orders of the Collector (Appeals) under section 193, orders under section 195, revision orders of the Director General Customs Valuation under section 25D, and appellate or quasi-judicial orders of a Chief Collector.

Because the pecuniary jurisdiction of adjudicating officers under section 179 rises with the amount of duty and tax involved, larger cases are usually decided at Additional Collector level or above and therefore skip the Collector (Appeals). The first step in any appeal is to read the order-in-original carefully and identify who signed it and under which section. Misdeclaration and adjudication are covered in our separate guide to customs misdeclaration and show-cause proceedings.

Appeal to the Collector (Appeals)

The appeal must be filed within thirty days of the date on which the decision or order was communicated to the appellant. Section 193 allows the Collector (Appeals) to admit a late appeal if satisfied that there was sufficient cause for the delay, but condonation is discretionary and the reasons must be supported, so it should never be treated as a fall-back.

Section 193A governs procedure:

• the appellant is entitled to be heard if he so requests;
• on filing of the appeal, the Collector (Appeals) may stay recovery of duty and taxes for a period not exceeding thirty days, after hearing the officer of the concerned Collectorate or Directorate;
• the appeal is to be decided within ninety days of filing (reduced from one hundred and twenty days by the Finance Act, 2019), extendable for reasons recorded in writing by up to sixty days unless the Board extends further;
• the order must be in writing and state the points for determination, the decision and the reasons.

The Collector (Appeals) can examine facts and law afresh. That makes this stage the right place to put in the documents that were not before the adjudicating officer, with an explanation of why they were not produced earlier.

The Customs Appellate Tribunal

The Customs Appellate Tribunal is established under section 194 and sits in benches, several of them in Karachi, where most port disputes arise. Key rules for an appeal under section 194A:

• Time limit. The appeal must be filed within forty-five days from the date on which the order is communicated. The current period was substituted by the Finance Act, 2025; reports of the Finance Bill described the earlier period as thirty days.
• Discretion to refuse small appeals. The Tribunal may refuse to admit an appeal where, among other cases, goods were confiscated without the option of redemption under section 181, or the fine or penalty does not exceed fifty thousand rupees.
• Benches. Under section 194C, appeals involving duty, tax, penalty or fine above five million rupees are heard by a bench that includes at least one judicial and one technical member; smaller matters may be heard by a single member.
• No remand. Section 194B allows the Tribunal to confirm, modify or annul the order and to record additional evidence itself, but it may not remand the case for that purpose.
• Decision period. The appeal is to be decided within ninety days of filing, with only a limited extension for recorded reasons, and adjournments are allowed only for compelling reasons and on payment of costs.

The Tribunal is the last forum that decides facts in the ordinary course. Its findings on valuation evidence, identity of goods or the weight of a laboratory report will usually shape what happens in the High Court, so the record before it must be complete. For valuation disputes in particular, see our guide to customs valuation disputes and port clearance.

Paying or securing the duty while the appeal runs

Filing an appeal does not of itself suspend recovery. Section 194A(5) provides that the assessed or adjudged duty and taxes remain payable unless recovery has been stayed. The Tribunal may stay recovery for thirty days at first, and a stay order can in no case exceed ninety days in total.

The Finance Act, 2025 added a condition: a stay is subject to furnishing a pay order or bank guarantee of not less than twenty-five per cent of the principal amount. The Finance Bill had proposed fifty per cent; the enacted text, as reproduced in FBR's consolidated Act, reads twenty-five per cent. A similar twenty-five per cent condition applies to stays granted by the High Court in a reference.

Section 195B separately requires a person appealing against duty demanded on goods no longer under customs control, or against a penalty, to deposit the amount with the proper officer pending the appeal, subject to the appellate authority dispensing with the deposit for undue hardship; such a dispensation lapses after six months unless the appeal is decided earlier. How section 195B operates alongside the newer stay provisions is not settled by any reported decision we have located, and practice varies between forums. Both sides should plan on the basis that recovery may proceed unless a stay, with the required security, is actually in place.

Reference to the High Court under section 196

The Finance Act, 2024 substantially rewrote section 196. As it now stands:

• the aggrieved person, or an officer of customs not below the rank of Deputy Collector or Deputy Director authorised in writing by the Collector or Director, may file a reference within thirty days of the Tribunal's order (the period was formerly ninety days);
• the reference may raise a question of law or a mixed question of law and fact arising from the Tribunal's order;
• the complete record of the Tribunal must be filed within fifteen days;
• a Special Bench of not less than two judges hears the reference and is to decide it within six months of filing, supported by a case management system;
• the duty remains payable in accordance with the Tribunal's order, but no recovery is made for fifteen days from the communication of that order;
• a High Court stay ceases to have effect after six months and requires a pay order or bank guarantee of at least twenty-five per cent of the principal amount, furnished before the Nazir of the court;
• section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1908 applies, so delay can be condoned on sufficient cause.

The widening to mixed questions matters in practice. In Special Customs Reference Application No. 562 of 2024 (Collector of Customs v. Seminar (Pvt.) Ltd, judgment of 23 January 2025), a Division Bench of the Sindh High Court observed that after the 2024 amendment the High Court may now decide questions of fact arising from the Tribunal's order, distinguishing earlier authority that confined reference jurisdiction to law. The Bench answered the questions in favour of the department on the valuation point before it. The practical consequence for both sides is that factual findings of the Tribunal are no longer as insulated as they were, and the questions proposed in the reference should be framed with care. Our page on Sindh High Court litigation covers filing practice in Karachi.

Beyond the High Court

Section 196 contemplates a petition for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court against the High Court's judgment on a reference; the procedure is explained in our guide to Supreme Court tax appeals. Where a dispute has instead been taken to the High Court in its constitutional jurisdiction under Article 199 (for example, a challenge to a notification or to the jurisdiction of an officer), appeals from such judgments now lie to the Federal Constitutional Court established by the Twenty-Seventh Amendment in November 2025.

High Courts generally decline to entertain writ petitions in matters for which the Customs Act provides an adequate appeal, unless the order is without jurisdiction, mala fide or passed in breach of natural justice. A writ petition is therefore not a substitute for a missed appeal deadline.

Alternative Dispute Resolution under section 195C

A person whose dispute is pending in any court or before an appellate authority may apply to the Board for resolution through an Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee under section 195C. The application must contain an initial resolution proposal with an offer of payment of duties and taxes. Cases in which criminal proceedings have been initiated, or which in the Board's view involve a question of law with a larger revenue impact, are excluded.

• The committee consists of a retired judge not below the rank of a High Court judge as chairperson, a customs officer not below the rank of Chief Collector, and a person nominated by the applicant from the categories the section specifies (including an advocate or chartered or cost accountant with at least ten years' experience in taxation).
• The committee is to decide within forty-five days, extendable by fifteen days, and recovery is treated as stayed meanwhile.
• Its decision binds the Collector, and the pending appeal or reference must then be withdrawn and the withdrawal communicated within thirty days of service of the decision.

ADR suits disputes that turn on documents or quantum rather than on a contested point of law. It is covered in detail, with the parallel income tax and sales tax provisions, in our guide to alternative dispute resolution in tax and customs.

Time limits at a glance and common mistakes

Stage	Provision	Filing period	Decision period
Collector (Appeals)	ss. 193, 193A	30 days from communication	90 days, extendable
Customs Appellate Tribunal	ss. 194A, 194B	45 days from communication	90 days, limited extension
High Court reference	s. 196	30 days from the Tribunal's order	6 months
ADR Committee	s. 195C	While litigation is pending	45 days, plus 15

Common mistakes, on both sides of customs appeals:

• counting time from the date of the order rather than the date of communication (or vice versa) without checking how and when the order was actually served;
• filing in the wrong forum because the rank of the adjudicating officer was overlooked;
• assuming that an appeal stops recovery when no stay, or the required security, is in place;
• leaving key evidence (contracts, bank documents, technical literature) to the Tribunal or High Court stage, where its admission is harder to justify;
• drafting reference questions that simply restate the grounds of appeal rather than identifying a question arising from the Tribunal's order.

Common questions

This article is general information about Pakistani law and procedure, not legal advice for any specific matter. If this touches on something you're currently facing, get in touch and we'll advise on your facts directly.