Justice Shakil Ahmad grills state counsel for his lack of knowledge & seriousness about recent internet disruptions across the country

LAHORE, Aug 16 (SABAH): The Lahore High Court’s (LHC) Justice Shakil Ahmad grilled the state counsel on Friday for his lack of “knowledge” and “seriousness” about recent internet disruptions across the country.

Major online platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp have been hit hard since last week with users reporting slowdowns and difficulties in accessing messaging and social media applications.

After months of speculation about the installation of a so-called ‘firewall’ that could be leading to internet disruptions, the country’s IT minister finally confirmed a day ago that the government was indeed upgrading its “web management system” to cope with cyber security threats.

Minister of State for IT Shaza Fatima Khawaja has said the government had sought a report from the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) and other institutions over the internet disruption. Meanwhile, PTA officials told a Senate committee that the telecom regulator was “assessing the issue” and the IT ministry would be in a better position to provide an overview in two weeks once the assessment is completed.

The Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) has warned that the country’s economy could lose up to $300 million due to the internet disruptions

Justice Ahmad took up a petition filed a day ago by Advocate Muhammad Nadeem, a Lahore resident. At the outset of the hearing, the judge ordered that the federal government’s counsel appear before the court by 12pm after consulting the relevant authorities.

When the hearing resumed, state counsel Rana Nauman appeared before the court and requested that the government be given some time to submit a “detailed report on the internet outages”.

“We will have to ask the PTA why the internet is slow [and] what has happened,” the counsel contended.

At this, Justice Ahmad observed: “This is a matter of public interest and your seriousness is such that you do not even have adequate information [about this issue].”

The judge then said he was serving his verdict on the matter. Reiterating that the petition pertained to public interest, Justice Ahmad said he would issue appropriate directives on it.