PTA Refuses to Follow FBR’s SIM Blocking Order: Here’s Why?

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has refused to comply with the government’s legal order to disable around 500,000 SIM cards of nonfilers. The national telecom regulator gave the rationale that the order was not in line with the existing legal framework.

Instead, the PTA asked the FBR to focus on “awareness campaigns through SMS” and take legal action against the deviants. It is pertinent to mention here that currently, less than 4.5 million people are filers of income tax returns as against the registered persons of over 10 million.

“As per applicable legal regulatory regime, the execution of Income Tax General Order (ITGO) issued under section 114-B of Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 does not fall within the jurisdiction of the [PTA],” stated the authority in correspondence with the FBR.

Furthermore, PTA said that the FBR’s order would have no legally binding effect as it is inconsistent with the applicable legal framework. Besides, it said that any person can obtain eight SIMs, which include three data and five voice SIMS. It also pointed out that in Pakistan, male members of the society prefer to register SIMs against their CNIC names instead of females and juveniles. Therefore, the children and female members of the family using SIMs of nonfiler male members may be deprived of communication with specific reference to their educational activities.

The telecom regulator also said the FBR should first issue tax notices under Section 114-B of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001. The FBR chairman has already stated that the FBR issued the notices to these non-filers but these people remained non-compliant.

“The impact of the execution of ITGO will also have an adverse impact on prevailing social norms,” said the PTA.

The PTA also claimed that blocking the SIM cards may also hurt the confidence of foreign investment in the telecom sector including the objectivity of digital transformation.