Justice Mian Gul Hassan Aurangzeb of Islamabad High Court dismissed Zong’s appeal against the PTA order and the Court upheld PTA’s order to refund Rs2.02 billion to customers.

Zong had filed an application against the decision of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s (PTA) directing it to refund Rs2.02 billion collected from customers on account of service/maintenance/cards / operational fee charges from 26.04.2019 to 12.07.2019.

The court observed in its decision “Cellular mobile operators including the appellant (Zong), had been charging Rs10 from customers each time they purchased and used a prepaid card valuing Rs100/- as assistance/maintenance / administrative service charges”.

Justice Mian Gul Hassan Aurangzeb said that the Supreme Court, in its order, expressed that the service charges could not have been validly and legally imposed on the amounts loaded by users of mobile phone devices.”

The IHC noted that on March, 05, 2018, the Supreme Court took suo moto notice of a complaint by the public against unreasonable and high amount of tax / other charges deducted on topping up or charging of the balance on the use of prepaid cards by customers.

The apex court, in its interlocutory order dated November,06, 2018, expressed its prima facie view that the service charges could not have been validly and legally imposed on the amounts loaded by users of mobile phone devices, later the Supreme Court extended the same relief to the post-paid consumers of the cellular companies.

The IHC order has highlighted that the telecos had informed the Supreme Court March 27, 2019 that they had stopped levying / imposing and collecting service / maintenance charges and did not intend to do so in the future.

Whereas, Zong in its response to PTA on April 04.2019, maintained that it had never stated that the cellular mobile operators had given up their right to charge service / maintenance charges

After the Supreme Court order the PTA issued letters on July 08, 2019, asking the telecos including Zong to provide complete details of service / maintenance charges recovered from April 24, 2019 onwards.

However, Zong did not give the relevant details to the PTA. Later, the telecom regulator directed Zong to refund the collected amount to all its subscribers, and the refund should be made available in the form of balance amount without any validity restriction.

The PTA had warned Zong that failure to comply with the said direction by September, 13 2019 would result in the initiation of proceedings in accordance with the relevant laws, but Zong filed an appeal against the PTA’s directive on September, 24 2019.

The IHC has dismissed Zong’s appeal against the PTA decision calling it not maintainable.