New Delhi: The Supreme Court is all set to give its judgement on pleas challenging the Jammu and Kashmir administration order on 4G mobile internet connection tomorrow. A bench headed by Justice N V Ramana had reserved orders on May 4 on the petitions filed by the foundation of media professionals association of Jammu and Kashmir.
The state administration had earlier restricted the internet speed in the valley in the region at 2G during lockdown. The petitioners represented by Advocate Hufeza Ahmedi and Salman Khurshid, had argued in the court detailing the hardships faced by the students and doctors during lockdown due to the non-availability of 4G services.
Ahmedi had contended that the doctors can not access information about corona treatment which is extremely necessary and 75 doctors have also made a representation flagging the same concerns.
"Right to access doctors is inherent under article 21. Deprivation of fundamental rights has to be judged in the light of the fact that today you have a pandemic and you have restricted right of people to access a doctor and of children to access a school," Ahmedi had said.
He also denied the government's claim that 2G is enough for browsing and said that it takes 50% more time to load in 2G when compared to 4G and due to the time outs video conferencing services perform poorly.
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Ahmedi cited the government's affidavit which claimed that YouTube video can be downloaded through 2G. Even the Aarogya Setu app is extremely difficult to download using 2G, added Ahmedi.
Further contending he said that there are 1.32 lakh broadband landline connections but more than 1 crore phone/internet connections which means that broadband connections in the UT account for less than 1 per cent of the total internet connections.
Raising the government's affidavit's points that 4G needs to be curbed due to surge in terror activities, the advocate contended that terrorism was more during the 1900s when there was no internet and there is no study that terror activities are directly linked to the internet.
Attorney General KK Venugopal, dismissing all the arguments of the petitioners, had said that pleas have to be examined against the larger public interest of national security which is paramount and those tasked with protecting national security must be the sole judges.
