PHC summons home dept official over disruption in mobile service
PESHAWAR: The high court on Tuesday summoned the provincial additional chief secretary (home) for responding to petitions challenging ‘persistent and blanket’ disruption of mobile network signals within and around the premises of the high court, Judicial...
The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday summoned the provincial additional chief secretary for home affairs in petitions challenging what lawyers described as a persistent and broad disruption of mobile phone signals around the court complex, according to a monitored public feed based on Dawn Pakistan’s report.
A bench comprising Justice Wiqar Ahmad and Justice Inamullah Khan asked the provincial government and the National Radio and Telecommunication Corporation to submit reports on what steps had been taken to address the problem. The court also directed NRTC to explain whether any department had failed to cooperate in resolving the issue.
The petitions were filed by the Peshawar High Court Bar Association and lawyers Hilal Khan and Suleman Shah. They argue that signal jammers installed at the nearby Peshawar Central Prison have affected telecommunication networks inside and around the high court premises, the Judicial Complex and adjoining areas.
PHC Bar Association president Aminur Rehman Yousafzai told the court that the jammers had disrupted mobile signals for more than a year, creating problems for lawyers, court staff and litigants. He said the respondents had previously assured the court that the matter would be addressed and that the jammers’ impact would be limited to a much shorter distance, but the disruption continued to affect daily court work.
Peshawar Bar Association president Qaiser Zaman also said lawyers’ work had been badly affected and noted that nearby residential areas were facing the same problem. Lawyer Ali Gohar Durrani said mobile signals were normally restored after 4pm.
During the hearing, the bench observed that the issue might be resolved if the jammer frequency were reduced or used at appropriate times.
Counsel for the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, Jehanzeb Mehsud, said the authority was named as a respondent but had no direct role in the matter. He said the jammers had been installed by NRTC under an agreement with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.
The court also heard reference to earlier comments from the then additional chief secretary for home and tribal affairs, Mohammad Abid Majeed, who said last year that a large number of high-risk and high-profile prisoners, including convicts linked to proscribed groups, were being held in central prisons in Peshawar, Mardan and Haripur. He said some inmates had managed to obtain mobile phones and use them to contact associates outside jail for unlawful activity.
According to the previous explanation cited before the court, the home department entered into an agreement with NRTC to install signal jammers in prison premises to block such communications, but the measure may have unintentionally disrupted service in nearby areas, including the Judicial Complex.
Source: Dawn Pakistan - https://www.dawn.com/news/2017344/phc-summons-home-dept-official-over-disruption-in-mobile-service
