Sindh High Court has restrained the federal government from issuing
Long Distance and International (LDI) licences under the obsolete
telecom policy till further orders.
Justice Nadeem Akhtar, who headed the bench, passed the stay order on
a private telephone operator’s petition challenging the notification
issued by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for issuing LDI
licences under the expired policy.
It maybe recalled that Telecom Policy was formulated in 2003 and was
to be renewed after every five years, however, the policy is still not
renewed since it got expired in 2008.
Telecom policy is a document that sets various standards regarding
telecom services, including the fee of various licenses and spectrums.
The petitioners, Telecard Limited, Redtone Telecommunications and
Multinet Pakistan, filed plea against Ministry of Information Technology
secretary and the PTA, saying the PTA is set to auction new LDI
licenses based on expired policy.
As per this expired policy, anybody – that meets certain criteria –
could obtain LDI licenses on payment of the prescribed fee of $500,000.
Petitioners said that this fee is dirt low as per current market
standards and hence government should be restrained from issuing new LDI
licenses based on expired and out-dated policy and rates.
It merits mentioning here that ministry of information and technology
was going to issue LDI licences to CMPak as it has issued a
notification in this regard on November 12, 2013.
Petitioners added that the valuable asset of the country was being
sold at throwaway prices which could cause billions of losses to the
telecom sector.
The court was pleaded to declare the notification illegal and direct
respondents to formulate new deregulating policy for telecom sector.
The bench restrained the federal government from issuing LDI licences
under the old telecom policy as well as issued notice to respondents to
file their comments by December 17.
This stay order will blow CMPak’s efforts to obtain new LDI license, for which it was struggling since its inception in 2007.
CMPak, the only cellular operator without LDI license, was earlier denied LDI license in 2007
due to Government of Pakistan’s agreement with Etisalat, according to
which Pakistan could not issue any new telecom licenses till March 2013.