The Supreme Court on Monday sought the responses of the Union ministries of home and telecom as well as the J&K government on a petition challenging the imposition of a ban on pre-paid mobile connections in the militancy-hit state.
Taking up the petition filed by the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party leader Bhim Singh, the Bench headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan gave two weeks? time to the respondents to file their reply.
?The ban order is unconstitutional, improper, authoritarian and arbitrary and violative of Articles 14, 19 and 21 among other provisions of the Constitution of India,? the petition alleges.
It has also accused the government of not applying its mind on the ban issue, asking why the same procedure could not be adopted for verification of the subscriber seeking a pre-paid plan as adopted in the case of the post-paid service.
The government had ordered that no fresh pre-paid mobile connections would be issued in J&K and that existing pre-paid SIM cards would not be renewed in the state after November 1 due to reasons of security.
