KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has issued notices to the interior ministry and Pakistan Telecommunica­tion Authority (PTA) on two applications seeking contempt proceedings against them for not restoring access to social media platforms.

A two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi directed the alleged contemnors to file specific replies by March 20.

The bench was hearing a set of petitions filed against suspension of mobile and internet services during the Feb 8 election and persistent outages of social media platforms X (formerly Twitter) and others across the country.

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Last month, some journalists and academics had filed a petition against the outage of X and on Feb 22, the SHC had directed the respondents that if there was no lawful justification or reasonable grounds to deny the internet access to X, the same must be restored and sought a compliance report.

SHC warns of action if legal justification not provided for denying access to X

Subsequently, the lawyers for the petitioners filed an application seeking contempt proceedings against the respondents on the ground that despite specific directives passed by the SHC, they had yet to restore X.

They submitted that the respondents/alleged contemnors had neither restored X nor any comment had been filed so far; hence the illegal act of closure of the social media platform in question by the PTA was still continued with impunity.

A federal law officer requested for time to seek instructions and file comments on behalf of the respondents including ministry of interior. A deputy director of the PTA undertook to file comments on the next date of hearing.

The bench while issuing notices to the respondents directed them to file specific comments/replies positively before the next hearing with advance copy to the counsel for petitioners.

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“It is, however, observed that if no legal justification or reasonable explanation whatsoever is given by the respondents for denying internet access to X/Twitter to the petitioners and public at large, inspite of court’s orders, the concerned respondents/alleged contemnors will expose themselves for initiation of contempt of court proceedings at their risk and consequences,” the bench in its order said.

It also stated that the earlier interim restraining order to restore X if there was no lawful justification or reasonable grounds for its closure will continue till the next hearing.

Another application was filed in a connected petition about suspension of mobile, internet and social media platforms during the day of polling on Feb 8. The applicant sought contempt proceedings against the ministry and PTA for violating earlier court orders.

The counsel argued that the comments had not been filed by the ministry of interior while prima facie no valid reason or material had been placed on record. Therefore, the suspension of telecom services on the polling day was a malafide exercise of the authority with specific purpose to deny access to public and a particular political party which was denied free election campaign through virtual gathering and rallies.

The deputy attorney general requested for time to file comments after the PTA in its comments stated that the authority was only implementing the directives issued by the ministry of interior about outages of mobile and internet services on Feb 8.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2024