Dhaka, June 21 (BDNEWS) – The High Court Tuesday issued a rule upon the Teletalk Bangladesh Limited, a public-owned mobile phone operator, and the government to show cause as to why they should not be directed to sell every SIM card of Teletalk to the subscribers at the earlier declared price of Tk 1800.
After hearing a writ petition filed by six Teletalk SIM lottery winners, the court also asked the respondents to show cause as to why the SRO issued by NBR and notice by Teletalk imposing Tk 1,200 as duty on the Subscribers Identity Module (SIM) card should not be declared illegal.
The rule made by a High Court bench comprising Justice Awlad Ali and Justice Jinat Ara is returnable within one week.
Six subscribers–Advocate Syed Ziaul Hasan, Shariar Parveen, advocate Selim Ahsan Khan, Mohammad Amir Hamja Khan, Rubina Yeasmin and M Sarower-e-Alam filed the petition as a public interest litigation in the High Court challenging the validity of issuing the SRO and notice imposing Tk 1,200 as duty on the SIM card by Teletalk and the government.
Secretaries of Ministries of Finance, and Telephone and Telegraph, Chairman of National Board of Revenue (NBR), second secretary of Value Added Tax (VAT), Commissioner of Custom, Excise and VAT Commissionerate, Dhaka (North) and Managing Director of Teletalk have been made respondents in the petition.
The petitioners submitted that Teletalk on May 5 this year published a public notification inviting applications from the people through electronic mails for becoming subscribers of the SIM cards of Teletalk. In the notification, the Teletalk stated that 50,000 subscribers will be selected from among the applicants through lottery and the lottery winners will get every SIM card for Tk 1,800.
The lottery was drawn on May 22 and the names of the lottery winners were published on May 23. About 20,000 lottery winners were given SIM cards at Tk 1800, it has been submitted.
On June 13, the Teletalk issued a notice referring to a SRO of the NBR that the subscribers will have to pay additional Tk 1,200 with Tk 1,800, the previous rate for every SIM card.
Advocate Idrisur Rahman moved for the petitioners before the court.
BDNEWS/1800 hrs
