CT Newsroom
Supreme Court’s (SC) Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail marked the existing law regarding allowing spy agencies to tap phones as “ambiguous” on Wednesday, saying that the case would also impact the pending cases.
Reportedly, Justice Amin-Ud-Din Khan headed a seven-member constitutional bench to hear the case related to phone tapping on Wednesday.
As per details, in July 2024, the federal government permitted the country’s premier spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to intercept and trace calls and messages in the apprehension of an offense against national security.
The Ministry of Information Technology issued a notification under Section 54 of the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organisation) Act, 1996 to grant authorization to ISI.
Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar as a bench member inquired the Additional Attorney General (AAG) Amir Rehman about any legislation carried out regarding the phone tapping.
AAG Amir Rehman responded to the query that the since 2013 law has been and ISI and Intelligence Bureau (IB) were officially granted permission to tap phones. “The procedure for phone tapping is part of the law, and judicial supervision is also in the law,” he informed the court.
Justice Mazhar informed the AAG that as per the law, only a judge can permit phone tapping. “Has any judge been notified for this purpose?” he asked. The AAG replied he was not aware of the nomination of a judge in this regard.
“We are not interested in reports or the law, we want results, “Justice Amin-Ud-Din Khan added.
The bench member Justice Mandokhail called the phone tapping law “ambiguous,” saying: “The [phone tapping] case will also affect the pending cases. This matter started from the chief justice’s chamber, where will the chief justice go?”
It is worth mentioning here that the federal government’s decision to allow phone tapping faced strong criticism from the opposition and was challenged in the Lahore High Court (LHC).However, on May 29, Lahore High Court’s Justice Babar Sattar forbids telecom companies from recording phone calls and data which disabled the intelligence and law enforcement agencies’ surveillance against criminals and terrorists.
