ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday stopped the government from blocking the mobile phone SIMs of non-filers.
IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq issued a stay order till May 27 as the court took up the petition filed by a mobile phone company challenging the government’s decision to block mobile phone SIMs of non-filers.
The development came days after the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and telecom operators agreed on blocking of SIMs of non-filers as part of the government’s policy to curb tax evasion to improve revenue generation amid serious economic indicators.
The FBR had announced that telecom companies have agreed to start the manual blocking process of SIMs in small batches until their systems are fully equipped to automate it.
The tax collection body said that the first batch comprising five thousand non-filers has been communicated to the telecom operators and that more batches would be sent to telecom operators on a daily basis.
Meanwhile, the operators had also started sending messages to non-filers regarding the blocking of their SIMs for intimation purposes.
FBR and telecom operators had been holding meetings over the resulting deadlock after the latter refused to implement the former’s decision to block 500,000 SIMs of persons who do not appear on the active taxpayer list but are liable to file the Income Tax Return for Tax Year 2023.
During the hearing, the petitioner’s lawyer Salman Akram Raja said that the amendment in the law is at odds with Article 18 of the Constitution which guarantees freedom to do business.
Raja said that there cannot be any legislation contrary to the fundamental rights provided by the Constitution.
Government’s Authority of Blocking SIMs
He told the court that the government cannot take the authority to block the mobile phone SIMs of individuals by making amendments to the law.
The counsel added that blocking more than 500,000 SIMs will result in a loss of 1 billion rupees annually.
