KARACHI:A divisional bench of High Court of Sindh (SHC) comprising Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah and Justice Zulfiqar Ahmed Khan on Tuesday reserved orders in a petition pertaining to import of mobile phones without prior “Type Approval”.
Earlier the bench heard a senior official of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority PTA who appeared before the court on notice and explained the term “Type Approval” in respect of imported mobile phones. He told the court that mobile phone manufacturing companies, which make GSM phones, assign eight digits numbers to each lot. One million mobile phone sets are made of one prototype. The manufacturer is allowed to divide this figure into ten models of 100,000 each with different facilities. Each mobile set has a separate identity and is traceable, PTA officer told the bench. He stated that the condition of obtaining “Type Approval” was applied because of peculiar and potential security situation in the country and to save the consumers/purchasers of mobile sets from substandard sets. There is a case where thousands of mobile sets of same IMEI were imported compromising the national security.
PTA has banned the import of “Black Phone” as it has a system which allows teleconferencing between a group of six people and calls made on these devices cannot be traced, PTA officer told the court emphasizing the need for Type Approval. He said that PTA normally grants Type Approval in two weeks time. The genuine companies, exporters and importers have been following the new condition. It is beneficial for common users also as they can claim guarantee. We are developing our system and in near future PTA would be sending SMS to owners of mobile phones to get their Type Approval verified or their phones will be unable to connect to cellular phone companies net works, he submitted before the court. This mean all such set will go waste, asked the bench and the reply came in affirmative.
The petition filed by Muhammad Iqbal, Mian Ilyas and Kashan Haroon, importers and distributors of mobile phone devices, service providers to different telecommunication companies in Pakistan.
Anwar Tariq advocate appearing for the petitioners submitted that he has no issue with the PTA policy but has questioned the notification issued by the FBR. I reiterate that FBR has no connection or role in this matter, he said. The bench after hearing the Deputy Attorney general as well as Masooda Siraj advocate counsel for Custom Valuation reserved the judgment.
On a previous hearing, the counsel for petitioners maintained that the business of the petitioners is badly hampered due to the restrictions and detention of the imported mobile phone sets by the custom authorities on pretext of some notification issued by the PTA. The action by customs is based on instructions from PTA which were pursuant to a policy devised in 2004, submitted Kashif Nazeer advocate, counsel for Pakistan Customs.