Lahore:
The High Court of Lahore (LHC) gave “the last chance” to the federal government to explain the mechanism it adopted while imposing a ban on the X social media platform, formerly Twitter.
The LHC has observed that the reprehensible content on a social media platform can be blocked but the presence of such content does not justify a complete ban on a platform.
A bench of three members led by the LHC chief judge, Aalia Neelum, heard the petitions deposited against the suspension of X which took place in February of last year.
PTA president, Major Gen (RETD) Hafez, Ur Rehman appeared before the bench and submitted a written response to petitions.
During the hearing, Federal Government’s lawyer Asad Bajwa said that the Interior Ministry did not have a system to follow the individual use of the Internet and therefore has a general ban.
The chief judge Neelum wondered how the ministry can block X but has no system to follow its use. Bajwa informed the bench that the government has trained a committee to examine the issue. The CJ rejected him as a delay tactic: “This committee is just to mislead the court.”
When the lawyer told the bench that the government had written to administration X for the withdrawal of the reprehensible content, the CJ asked if there was an official agreement between the government and X. “Why would X respond to you if there was no agreement?” She asked.
A member of the bench, judge Ali Zia Bajwa, asked the president of the PTA if the official account X of the PTA was still active. When the president of the PTI responded in the affirmative, the judge noted sarcastically that the PTA had prohibited X but used the platform itself
During the hearing, the president of the PTA said that all X users of Pakistan access X via VPN. He denied having used a VPN personally but admitted that the PTA used a VPN, a declaration which he tried to remove later.
The CJ reprimanded the head of the PTA to have come to the unprepared court and made “a false declaration”. “The condemnation of the president of the PTA was a waste-there is lack of knowledge,” she said.
When the president of the PTA said that the authority could restore X if it was led by the court, judge Bajwa noted that the PTA had apparently acted wrongly and was now looking for justification to relaunch the social media platform. Judge Bajwa said the rules allow content to block the content but not a ban on the platform scale.
