By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: A sweeping overhaul of Pakistan’s telecommunications laws has run into fierce parliamentary resistance, with the Senate standing committee demanding a 45-day review after legislators identified what they described as fundamental conflicts with citizens’ constitutional right to property.
The Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organisation) (Amendment) Bill 2026, tabled by IT Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja and passed by the National Assembly on 11 June, now faces clause-by-clause scrutiny in the upper house after senators raised alarms over provisions that would, in certain circumstances, treat a property owner’s silence as permission for telecom operators to install infrastructure on their land.
Senator Palwasha Khan, who chairs the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology, has given notice that the legislation cannot survive in its current form. “In its current form, the bill conflicts with Articles 23 and 24 of the Constitution, which protect citizens’ rights to own and use property,” she said. “I do not believe it can be passed in its present form.”
The legislation amends the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organisation) Act of 1996, seeking to streamline what the government describes as a fragmented and inconsistently administered process for granting operators access to land and property — known in the industry as right of way — to build towers, lay fibre-optic cables and deploy telecoms infrastructure. Officials say the overhaul is essential to attracting investment ahead of a planned 5G spectrum auction, and point to figures showing that only between 14 and 19 percent of Pakistan’s 58,423 cell sites are currently connected to fibre networks, leaving most of the country’s more than 207 million mobile and fixed-line subscribers dependent on slower mobile broadband.
But the manner in which the bill proposes to expedite that process has alarmed senators and civil society observers alike.
Among the most contentious provisions is one under which a property owner who fails to respond to an initial access request, and then to a mandatory follow-up reminder sent after 15 days, is deemed to have given implied consent after 30 days in the case of collectively owned properties — housing societies, cooperative schemes and private estate management entities, whether formally registered or not. For publicly owned land, the same presumption of consent applies automatically. Only for individually owned private property is the matter referred to the appropriate government authority rather than treated as automatic approval.
A new enforcement section — Section 27B, which has no predecessor in the 1996 legislation — would allow the appropriate government to fine owners, lessees, tenants or entities up to Rs50 million, approximately $175,000, for obstructing or delaying the granting of such access rights. Disputes would be referred to a government-nominated officer of at least secretary rank, who would be required to settle the matter within 45 days.
Critics say the combined effect of these provisions is to give private telecom companies an instrument of compulsion that bypasses normal due process. Khan said she had been told by officials that mobile towers were excluded from the scope of the bill, but found that the draft text itself did not clearly reflect this. “The legislation is drafted in a way that could allow private companies to classify virtually anything as telecommunications equipment and install it anywhere,” she said. “A person sitting in their home could receive notices, become entangled in prolonged litigation, and ultimately find that the final decision rests with a government official.”
The government has pushed back robustly against what it characterises as a misreading of the bill. In a lengthy statement on Saturday, the IT ministry insisted that the right-of-way provisions “do not permit telecom operators to enter individual private property without the owner’s permission or due legal process, and do not authorise compulsory acquisition of private land”. It said property owners retain the right to negotiate terms, seek compensation, raise objections and agree on matters including route alignment, timing and the manner of access, and that operators cannot force entry while a dispute remains under review by the appropriate authority.
The ministry also sought to clarify the scope of the fines provision, specifying that the penalties would apply only where a property owner had already entered a contract with an operator and then reneged on its terms, thereby jeopardising investments already made. Fatima made a similar argument in recent broadcast remarks. “The provision does not mean that someone can simply force their way onto private property,” she said, adding that constitutional protections would remain in force and that the government was prepared to improve the wording of any provisions that lacked clarity.
The ministry acknowledged that internet services across Pakistan had “faced severe issues due to a lack of investment in telecom infrastructure”, attributing this to what it described as arbitrary fees, inconsistent requirements and a fragmented approvals process that had driven up deployment costs and degraded service quality. It argued that the proposed reforms represented an “important step towards supporting Pakistan’s digital transformation, attracting investment in telecommunications infrastructure, and improving services for millions of Pakistanis,” particularly with the 5G auction on the horizon.
Structurally, the bill reorganises the existing right-of-way framework around a new set of definitions. The term “right of way” itself is replaced with “access by licensee for telecommunication infrastructure,” and the new definition notably extends beyond the original right merely to pass over land to include the right to enter and use premises. New categories of private and public access for telecommunication infrastructure are defined, with the definition of the former expressly brought to include organised collective ownership structures regardless of registration status.
Section 27A, which previously set out the general right-of-way framework, is entirely replaced by a new version that states no owner, lessee, tenant or public or private entity “shall hinder or abridge” a licensed operator’s access rights, notwithstanding any contrary law, regulation or contract.
On the question of compensation, the bill bars any charges for access to publicly owned land. For individually owned private property, owners and operators may agree fees between themselves, with the appropriate government as arbiter if negotiations fail. For collectively owned private property — the housing societies and cooperative schemes — the bill bars compensation entirely.
It is this last provision that has proved particularly contentious, with residents of private gated developments finding themselves in a category that, under the bill’s current text, would allow access to their property with implied consent and without any right to charge for it.
Khan said she had secured a 45-day extension for the committee’s review and would seek a further extension if needed. “We will consult experts and each and every clause of the bill will be deliberated upon,” she said. “This process should have been done before tabling the bill.” The National Assembly had passed the legislation in a majority vote during a parliamentary budget session; any amendments adopted by the Senate would require it to return to the lower house for another vote.
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