IHC issues notices to ministry, PTA over ‘ban’ on X
ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday issued notices to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and the information ministry on a plea challenging the “ban” on social media plaform X, formerly Twiter.
Access to X has been disrupted in many areas of Pakistan since Feb.17, when former Rawalpindi commissioner Liaquat Chatha accused the chief election commissioner and chief justice of Pakistan of being involved in rigging the Feb.8 general elections.
A petition has been filed by Ehtisham Abbasi, a resident of Islamabad, and named the information ministry and the PTA as the respondents.
It urged the high court to issue directives to the respondents to “immediately lit the ban on X access in the interest of justice.”
It argued that the “act of the respondents against journalists particularly in the recent past is highly violative” of Article 19 of the Constitution (freedom of speech).
Referring to the “very important fundamental right” as provided under Article 14 of the Constitution (inviolability of dignity of man, etc), the plea said that the “liberty of a person” was a “pivotal right and falls squarely within the ambit of right to life and dignity of a person.”
The petition asserted that the “impugned inaction of the respondents is deliberate, arbitrary, mala fide, without lawful authority” and
“derogatory” to the provisions of the Constitution and the fundamental rights guaranteed therein.
It added that the “impugned inaction is patently void, ab initio, a contrived an untenable, misplaced, misdirected, unfounded, erroneous, contrary to the law and facts on the record,” and was liable to be set aside by the IHC.
The petitioner further argued that the disruption of X “suffers from serious legal infirmities as the same is not sustainable in view of the setled law” and that “a number of other constitutional and statutory rights have been infringed and circumvented.”
Separately, the Islamabad High Court has summoned the PTA chairman in an audio leak case, ater his lawyer denied that the regulatory body had given any permission for call interception.
The case is related to the petitions filed by Najam Saqib, the son of former chief justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar, and Bushra Bibi, the spouse of former prime minister Imran Khan.
Both the petitioners challenged the inquiries initiated against them on the basis of an alleged audio leak, which went viral on the social media before being broadcast in the national media.
When Justice Babar Satar of the IHC resumed the hearing, the directors general of Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) were in atendance.