IHC orders govt to refrain from blocking non-filers SIMs till 27th

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday directed the government to refrain from blocking the SIMs of non-filers till May 27.

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 sims of non-filers.

The development came days after the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and telecom operators agreed to block SIMs of non-filers as part of the government’s bid to curb tax evasion to improve revenue generation amid dire economic indicators.

The FBR had announced that telecom companies had agreed to commence the manual blocking process of SIMs in small batches until their systems were fully equipped to automate it.

The tax collection body said the first batch comprising 5,000 non-filers had been communicated to the telecom operators and that more batches would be sent to telecom operators on a daily basis.

The operators had also commenced sending messages to non-filers regarding the blocking of their SIMs for intimation purposes.The FBR and telecom operators had been holding meetings over the ensuing deadlock after the latter refused to implement the former’s decision to block 500,000 SIMs of individuals who did not appear on the active taxpayer list but were liable to file the income tax return for tax year 2023.

During the hearing, petitioner’s counsel Salman Akram Raja argued that the amendment in the law was at odds with Article 18 of the Constitution, which guaranteed freedom to do business.Raja said there could not be any legislation contrary to the fundamental rights given in the Constitution.

He told the court that the government could not take the authority of blocking the mobile phone SIMs of the people by making amendments to the law.“Blocking more than 500,000 SIMs will result in a loss of Rs1 billion annually,” the counsel said.