On Tuesday, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) prevented the government from preventing non-filers’ SIM cards from being blocked.
While the court considered a petition submitted today by a mobile phone carrier contesting the government’s intention to block the sims of non-filers, IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq imposed a stay order until May 27.
This came about a few days after the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and telecom companies reached a consensus to block non-filers’ SIM cards as part of the government’s attempt to reduce tax evasion and increase revenue production in the face of bleak economic forecasts.
The FBR had previously declared that telecom providers have consented to start manually blocking SIM cards in small batches until their systems are ready to handle the task automatically.
