The National Assembly of the National Assembly on Information Technology and Telecommunications held a meeting in which the Long Distance International (LDI) companies and licenses were chaired by Convenor Zulfiqar Ali Bhatti, which was allowed to pay billions of rupees.
The conveyor questioned how such disputes can be resolved outside the court, while the IT secretary made it clear that no public money outside the court was possible.
According to committee debates, officials of the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) said that if the LDI companies wanted to advance legal battles, the regulator was also ready to fight the cases in court. The establishment of telecom tribunals can help solve these problems faster, he added.
The IT Secretary told the committee that an LDI company is ready to pay its original money within a month, while the company wants the court to decide on a fine. He said that the company has already submitted its recommendations to the court, and seven of the nine LDI companies have shared their suggestions with the PTA, while the three have maintained that they will only follow the court’s decision.
The conveyor has long expressed concern over the legal action and questioned why if the matter had to be made in court, why was the time being washed. The sub -committee decided to summon the Secretary of Law and the Attorney General on October 16 to discuss legal complications related to the LDI dispute. The conveyor directed the Law Ministry to explain that the matter remained in the courts for years, the solution remained to be resolved, and asked the Attorney General to write a letter to the committee on the government’s legal strategy.
According to the Frequency Allotment Board (FAB) officials, Southern Networks Limited has seized 140 MW in the 2600 MW band without any permission, while the matter is the most related to the Supreme Court and the civil court. The FAB representative revealed that the board needed a law for a year to appoint members to the telecom tribunals. He added that legal disputes on the prime spectrum are delaying the auction of 5G technology and claimed that the influential elites were seizing the spectrum without a license.
Convener Zulfiqar Ali Bhatti concluded that such irregularities could occur only in Pakistan, and announced that the next meeting would include the Secretary for Law and the Attorney General. He said that the sub -committee would also have recommendations from the ministries of IT and law to resolve the legal disputes related to the ongoing spectrum to ensure fair and transparent telecom operations in the country.