Supreme Court Reinstates ICH by Nullifying LHC Decision

Supreme Court of Pakistan has nullifiedLahore High Court’s interim decisionthrough which ICH or International Clearing House was suspended, reported Geo TV.

Supreme court’s Lahore registry has now remanded back the ICH case to CPP (Competition Commission of Pakistan) by saying that Lahore High Court is not mandated to suspend ICH.

SC said that ICH case should be heard in accordance with law and resolved in 15 days by Competition Commission of Pakistan.

It maybe recalled that Lahore High Court had suspended ICH after a local telecom operator had filed a petition against MoIT’s directive of implementing ICH.

According to the ministry directive, all LDI operators, except PTCL, were asked to suspend their international circuits for international incoming traffic and hence all international incoming traffic was practically landing on PTCL’s network only. All – other than PTCL – LDI operators were promised a respective revenue share from international incoming traffic according to their current market share.

Lahore High Court had then suspending the ICH and had directed Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to implement court orders by asking operators to revert back to international incoming charges at pre-ICH level.

Today, LDI operators approached Supreme Court against LHC’s decision and requested to reinstate ICH.

While accepting the petition, the Lahore registry of Supreme Court nullified LHC’s decision and reinstated ICH. Supreme Court — in its order —  said that Lahore High Court is not mandated to suspended ICH. Instead the case should be heard by CCP, the order said.

It merits mentioning here that ICH had given a free hand to operators to charge higher charges for international incoming calls. This has not only surged stock values of telecom companies but has also enabled them to post record revenues during the last Oct-Dec 2012 quarter.