The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has continued the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s (PTA’s) order for ZONG telecom to refund over Rs 2 billion to its consumers in the country.
The IHC, under Judge Mian Gul Hassan Aurangzeb, has dismissed Zong’s appeal against the PTA order, directing the telecom company to refund over Rs 2 billion collected from its customers between April 26, 2019, and July 12, 2019 on account of service/maintenance/cards/operational fee charges.
The court’s decision highlights that Zong had charged its customers Rs 10 for every Rs 100 prepaid card purchase, citing this as a “service/maintenance/administrative fee.”
Justice Aurangzeb referred to the Supreme Court’s earlier order, which stated that such charges could not be legally imposed on the amounts loaded by mobile users.
The court ruled that Zong’s appeal was not maintainable and upheld the PTA’s directive for the telecom company to refund Rs 2,028,038,584, which it had collected from customers during the specified period.
Zong was ordered to provide full details of these charges from April 24, 2019, onwards and to refund the entire amount to affected subscribers in the form of a balance, with no validity restrictions.
Source: ARY News
