Vallibel Lanka (Pvt) Limited vs Director-General of Customs and Three Others – sllr 2008 volume 1 page 219

In the case between Vallibel Lanka (Pvt) Limited and the Director-General of Customs and others, the court addressed whether a sea-going vessel (“MV Induruwa Valley”) should be classified as “imported” under the Customs Ordinance for the purpose of imposing GST, NSL, and Defence Levy. It was held that a vessel arriving during the ordinary course of navigation does not meet the statutory definition of “imported good”; fiscal statutes require strict interpretation, and taxation powers for recovery lie exclusively with the Commissioner General of Inland Revenue. This decision reaffirmed the need for administrative authorities to act within their legislatively defined powers and emphasized that statutory taxes cannot be imposed or recovered by implication or by administrative expansion of stat