Illegally charged mobile service taxes can’t be used in Dam Fund, SC told

The Supreme Court (SC) was told on Wednesday that the previously charged illegal mobile service taxes collected from the cell/mobile phones users through the mobile phone bills cannot be retrieved and deposited in the Dam Fund which is being used in the construction of Diamer-Basha and Mohmand Dams.

A Supreme Court’s five-member implementation bench for supervision of progress on the construction of Diamer-Basha and Mohmand Dams headed by Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed resumed the hearing in the instant matter. The implementation bench had also a special committee which includes two directors of State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and an official of the Supreme Court to take care of the investment collected for dams’ fund project.

Additionally, the apex court had also appointed two amici curiae (advisors of the court) Makhdoom Ali Khan and Dr. Pervaiz Hassan to assist regarding Dam funds utilization. While submitting his report to the SC’s bench, Parvez Hassan remarked that mobile service charges/taxes were illegally charged from the mobile phone users, therefore any refund of these services/taxes must be returned to the mobile phone users from whom these amounts were illegally charged.

Mr. Hassan told the court that the illegally charged mobile service charges/taxes can only be deposited into the Dam Fund with the consent of the mobile consumers from whom these amounts were illegally charged. Mr. Hassan also referred to a previous SC judgment (Engineer Iqbal Zafar Jhagra versus Federation of Pakistan 2103 SCMR 1337) where the illegally charged sales tax amount was refunded to the consumers. He noted his submissions on other points as well, however, SC will examine these submissions at a later stage.