ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered constitution of a special committee to suggest measures to curb unchecked availability of smuggled Indian direct-to-home (DTH) devices in the local market, which is one of the reasons behind the country’s revenue losses.

The committee will consist of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Jahanzeb Khan, Member Customs Mohammad Zahid, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Director General Bashir Memon and Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) Chairman Saleem Baig.

The directive was issued by a three-judge SC bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar, which had taken up a case relating to easy availability of Indian DTH or magic box in Pakistani markets. The DTH satellite TV is the latest technology to deliver digital TV to households.

The court directed the committee to come up with a way out on a war footing to tackle the menace seriously and submit their recommendations in 10 days. The court also ordered the member Customs to identify how such devices were being smuggled into Pakistan.

The CJP regretted that such devices mostly consisting of Indian channels resulted in draining of hard-earned money out of Pakistan.

Meanwhile, a report furnished by Additional Attorney General Nayyar Abbas Rizvi on grey traffic activities in the country suggested carrying out forensic audit of all mobile service providers — Zong, Ufone, Telenor, Jazz, etc — by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on a war footing so that any company doing online business could come under surveillance.

The report was submitted to the Supreme Court during the hearing of a suo motu case relating to grey traffic networks in the country.

The report recommended that the FIA publicise raids or prosecution on all media forums to ensure a strong message to grey traffickers. It suggested that web portals be developed for sending daily reports of the mobile operators’ grey detections for access to the PTA and FIA for speedy investigations and bust operations. “And where the government entity is found guilty of being party to grey traffic activities or involved in protecting a grey traffic, the government official should immediately be removed from his office and face prosecution,” the report suggested.

It said that the use of false CLI (caller line identification) on incoming international calls was also a national security risk as it impeded any call tracing and prevented lawful interception. It also results in the revenue loss to the mobile operators or LDI (long distance and international connectivity) equals a loss on taxation that could have been earned by the tax authority.

However, the current risk of OTT (over the top) bypass was quite minimal as Viber was not being widely used in Pakistan, but the focus should be on other grey traffic frauds, the report said.

During the hearing, the FIA director general informed the court that the agency was carrying out operations against grey traffic activities.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2018

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