Coconut Committee Act, 1944

This 1944 Act (whose short title was later changed to the Coconut Cess Act, 1944) imposes an excise duty, called a cess, on copra -- dried coconut kernel -- when it is consumed in mills across Pakistan to extract oil, whether the copra was grown locally or imported. Section 3 sets the mechanism: the Federal Government fixes the actual rate by notification in the official Gazette, originally capped at up to four annas per hundredweight (cwt), and can vary that rate later by further notification.

Section 10 requires every mill owner to file a monthly return with the Collector (the officer appointed to administer the Act) by the 7th of each month, stating the total copra consumed the previous month. Under Section 11, the Collector assesses the duty owed based on that return and must give the mill owner thirty days' notice to pay; if a return is late or looks incorrect, the Collector can assess the duty independently, though the owner must first be given a chance to prove the return was accurate. Section 12 lets an aggrieved mill owner apply to the District Judge within three months to have the assessment cancelled or modified, with the Judge's decision being final; unpaid amounts are recoverable as an arrear of land revenue.

Section 13 gives the Collector or an authorised officer free access during working hours to inspect any mill and examine its purchase, sale and stock records to verify returns, though they cannot examine confidential trade formulae or processes. Section 14 requires that any information gathered this way be kept confidential -- an officer who improperly discloses it faces imprisonment of up to six months plus a fine, though disclosure is allowed if needed to prosecute someone for filing a false return.

Section 18 lets the Federal Government make rules to carry out the Act, and Section 18A (added later) allows those rules to set a penalty of up to one thousand rupees for breaking them. Section 20 requires all rules to be published in the official Gazette.

This is a very old wartime-era cess law from 1944, and the extract shows it has been extensively amended and partly gutted over the decades -- several original sections (4 through 9, 15, 16, 17, 19) have been omitted entirely through amendments in 1946, 1950, 1980 and 1982. Given how heavily amended it is and how narrow its subject matter is (a single agricultural cess), its practical relevance today should be checked, and any duty rate or penalty figure verified against the current official text.