PESHAWAR, Oct 4: A two-member bench of the Peshawar High Court on Friday admitted for full hearing a writ petition challenging the levy of General Sales Tax, withholding tax and Central Excise Duty by the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited in the telephone bills of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas subscribers.

The bench, comprising Justice Ijaz Afzal and Justice Dost Mohammad Khan, also sought comments from the PTCL on the petition filed by Bazzar Gul Afridi, President of Khyber Union of Bara, Khyber Agency, and five other subscribers of the same agency.

The petitioners claimed that the laws pertaining to the GST, Central Excise Duty and withholding tax had not been extended to Fata in terms of Article 247 of the Constitution, thus the PTCL had no authority to recover the same from the telephone subscribers in those areas.

Advocate Abdul Lateef Afridi appeared for the petitioners and argued that the Sales Tax Act, 1990, Central Excise Act, 1944 and Income Tax Ordinance, 1979, were not extended to Fata by the president of Pakistan. He referred to Article 247 of the Constitution, arguing that under this section the president of Pakistan had to issue a separate notification for extending a law to Fata.

He added that even an act of parliament would not be applicable to Fata unless the president issued a notification in that regard.

Mr Afridi contended that keeping in view the non-extension of these laws to Fata, the PTCL had no authority to levy these taxes and recover it from its subscribers in the tribal areas. He said the petitioners had been subjected to unlawful taxes. He contended that the respondents were liable to refund to the petitioners all the amounts which had been recovered from them under the guise of the said laws.

He said Fata enjoyed special status and due to same reason normal laws were not extended there.

The respondents in the petition are PTCL through its chairman, General Manager PTCL, Northern Region, Ministry of Telecommunication, Science and Technology and the government of Pakistan through secretary finance.