The Court of Appeal today directed the Sri Lanka Customs (SLC) to release a stock of 625 BYD vehicles that had been detained, subject to respective bank and corporate guarantees.
The order was made by Court of Appeal President Justice Rohantha Abeysuriya and Justice K. Priyantha Fernando when several writ petitions filed by John Keells CG Auto (Pvt) Ltd were taken up for hearing.
Senior Additional Solicitor General Sumathi Dharmawardena, PC, appearing for the Director General of Customs, informed the court that the Customs had agreed to release several categories of vehicles under the arrangement.
Accordingly, the court ordered the release of 130 BYD Atto 1 Dynamic (45kw) and 74 BYD Atto 1 Premium (45kw) vehicles on corporate guarantees equivalent to the value of the bank guarantees.
In addition, 232 BYD Dolphin Standard (49kw) vehicles and three BYD Sealion 7 (100kw) vehicles were ordered to be released on bank guarantees.
Meanwhile, six BYD vehicles will remain in Customs custody to facilitate the testing of their motor capacity, which was the subject of the original dispute.
Taking the submissions into account, the Court of Appeal ordered the Sri Lanka Customs to expeditiously release the vehicles in accordance with the agreed guarantees. (Newswire)