THE petroleum minister’s explanation in the National Assembly that the recent closure of the Iran border has disrupted liquefied petroleum gas supplies and driven up prices identifies a major cause of the current crisis. The subsequent partial border reopening has failed to ease the shortage.
While the closure may have triggered the present shortages and price hike, the problem recurs every winter. Pakistan produces only about a quarter of the LPG it needs. The rest is imported, mainly from Iran. The disruption of cross-border trade has therefore exposed the vulnerability of a market that depends heavily on external supplies. The Iran war has also complicated efforts to bring in more by sea. The minister says efforts are being made to increase seaborne supplies, but consumers have yet to see relief.
The state must explain what additional volumes have been secured, and when they will arrive. Further, why were no contingency measures taken before the Iran border closure, especially when the authorities knew that the onset of winter would push up demand? The decision-makers owe an explanation to people suffering due to sudden shortages and price shock.
That said, the current LPG supply disruption is only part of the wider story. LPG prices have historically surged as winter approaches, even without a major supply shock. This recurring pattern suggests that the crisis is not simply the result of border closure.
Inadequate advance planning, weak market oversight and the failure to build reliable supply arrangements leave consumers exposed whenever demand rises or imports are interrupted. The consequences are particularly harsh for households without access to piped natural gas. Millions of families in northern Pakistan, remote and hilly areas, and parts of Punjab depend on LPG for cooking and, during colder months, heating.
Low gas pressure and restricted supplies in connected areas also push more consumers towards cylinders, adding to demand. With the official price around Rs280 per kg and reported market rates reaching Rs500-800, an essential fuel has become unaffordable for many. Blaming the Iran border closure is but an attempt to cover up the ministry’s failure to do its basic duty: ensure adequate supplies ahead of the closure and enforce the official fuel price.
INDIA’S nuclear jingoism was on ample display during Operation Marka-i-Haq in May 2025 when it fired dual-use BrahMos cruise missiles with conventional payload, unmindful of the fact that the dangerous caper could have been misconstrued by Pakistani air defenders as a nuclear attack. Despite an agreement on pre-notification of flight testing of ballistic missiles, the Indians, while testing the Agni V MIRV-capable missile, have shown a blithe disregard for established pre-notification protocols that mandate a 72-hour pre-test notification, a fact pointed out by Pakistan’s Foreign Office in 2024.
While the Indians keep up an implacable momentum of vertical proliferation of nuclear and missile technology, the world indulges them through exceptionalism enshrined in the nuclear waiver for the Nuclear Suppliers Group and membership of the Missile Technology Control Regime.
The Indians have slyly wangled the concession from the USA and IAEA in the civil nuclear deal to keep eight reactors out of IAEA oversight. These pressurised heavy water reactors consume less nuclear fuel than they produce, which can be harvested for strategic military purposes.
It should be remembered that it was the Indians who introduced the nuclear arms race in the subcontinent because of their grandiose big-power pretensions. Their nuclear explosions in 1974 and 1998 forced Pakistan to follow suit out of its security compulsions.
The world indulges India through nuclear exceptionalism.
The Indian nuclear security architecture was provided conceptual ballast by Gen K. Sunderji and Krishna Subramanyam in the 1980s, when they came up with the notion of no-first use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear nation, with a caveat of making an exception for biological and chemical attacks. However, India kept developing its conventional forces, especially the armoured and mechanised component, as per the Sunderji doctrine, aimed at tearing Pakistan asunder.
On the geopolitical level the Indians have acquiesced to the status of a regional surrogate to accommodate balancing needs of the US vis-a-vis a rising global competitor, China. While enjoying nuclear exceptionalism the Indians went on a shopping spree for nuclear technology as well as the conventional hardware to operationalise the military strategy that sought an elusive space for conventional wars under the nuclear overhang.
The operational manifestation of these military ambitions was a slew of concepts starting with Cold Start and graduating to proactive operations. The latest manifestation of those concepts is the Dynamic Response Strategy that is based on rapidly deployable all-arms-based integrated battle groups and multidomain-enabled terrain-customised brigade-sized groups called Rudra Brigades.
Pakistan relies on its full-spectrum deterrence, keeping strategic nuclear ambiguity for greater liberty of action to deny India the space for conventional conflict.
While India deploys non-state actors to keep Pakistan destabilised through terrorism, it cleverly conflates Pakistan’s principled support to the victims of Indian state repression in Occupied Kashmir, a UNSC-recognised dispute, with militancy. It has also withdrawn from its international law commitments by illegally holding the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance and imperilling the food security of Pakistan.
India under the BJP and RSS sway has adopted a foreign policy based upon the antiquated notion of ‘Akhand Bharat’ that covets the territories of neighbours based on historical myths. The inflammatory statement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Barmer, Rajasthan, during an election rally that “Indian nukes are not kept for Diwali” indicates a bellicose mindset.
It is against the backdrop of the above facts that the notions of nuclear deterrence in the subcontinent have to be understood. Since the stability of nuclear deterrence is based upon nuclear dialectics between two rational actors, Indian irrationality adds dangerous instability to the nuclear equation.
The deployment of canisterised ground-based ready-to-use nuclear missiles and the submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missiles point to an aggressive nuclear intent when viewed in the context of Indo-Pak distrust and irrationality of the ideologically driven BJP leadership.
The well-known military historian Martin Van Creveld had coined a term for wars in the nuclear era: “Non-trinitarian”, where, unlike Clausewitz’s trinitarian wars, the only political objective would be deterring and not winning the wars.
Whether India has strengthened or reduced its strategic deterrence by fielding shallow-range submarine-based missiles is a point to ponder by Indian nuclear strategists.
FEW companies are hailed as proof of free-market genius more than Tesla. Yet, at every turn that mattered, it stood on public capital.
In 2010 it borrowed $465m from a US federal programme open to every carmaker building cleaner vehicles, in a country where transport is now the largest source of greenhouse gases. It paid the Treasury’s own cost, roughly one to 3.4 per cent, with principal deferred until production began. One of the smallest borrowers, it became the star, repaying with interest nine years early. Regulatory credits, earned by beating emission rules and bought by those that fall short, then carried it into profit.
Pakistan asks its banks to do alone what no quintessential capitalist economy asks of its own: lend to priority sectors without the state sharing the risk and the price. This is not a lesson taken from state-led economies such as China, where public support is part of the model. It comes from the market economies themselves, which do it openly and without apology. Tesla is not their exception; it is their method.
Look at where they aim interest subsidies, and how deep. Farming comes first: America lends beginning farmers money to buy land at under 2pc and caps their operating microloans at 5pc, while Canada pays the interest on the first C$250,000 of each grower’s cash advance. Housing is next: France gives first-time buyers zero-interest loans and compensates banks through tax credits. Then enterprise: Britain lends start-ups unsecured at a fixed 6pc, with mentoring, and its firms outlive their peers; Germany’s KfW cheapens founders’ loans and absorbs four-fifths of any loss so local banks will lend.
In every case, the taxpayer took the first risk and part of the financing cost, at the stage private finance would not, and demanded performance in return. And the subsidy went to the borrower, the priority-sector player, not the lender: the bank is paid only the market interest the borrower is spared.
Subsidies have built giants, and an emerging economy needs them more, not less.
That is the global norm. Why, then, is Pakistan so averse to it? Here, subsidy for producers is treated as a dirty word, subsidised credit is misread as a benefit to banks, and lenders are blamed for holding back from risks their peers abroad never shoulder unaided. Asking them to match the world’s lending without the world’s toolkit is neither fair nor realistic.
The money exists; its direction is the problem. This year’s federal budget allocates Rs838bn to the Benazir Income Support Programme, up by a sixth, and almost as much to the power sector; provincial budgets add their own spending on wheat, fertiliser and household relief. Little of it is designed to make the poor bankable.
BISP is indispensable. Reaching some 10 million families through a national registry and digital payments, it is one of the country’s institutional achievements, and that safety net must stay. But a stipend, by its nature, protects rather than transforms. A net that never becomes a springboard keeps the poor safe, but poor.
BISP must now be balanced with wealth creation at the lower strata of society, so that families able to work have a path from support to enterprise. Wealth, like subsidy, is not a bad word. It can be created at every level, including the bottom, and it is what keeps incomes rising sustainably. The cliché about wealth must go, just like subsidies.
So add a ramp without lowering the floor: dedicate a tenth of BISP’s allocation to an enterprise window within the programme; that is smaller than this year’s increase, so no family need receive less than last year.
Run it as the world does. Target precisely: older people, persons with disabilities and households with no working member keep their full stipend; working-age households, starting with the women BISP serves, get concessional credit for livestock, horticulture, cottage industry, solar trades and digital work. Price it for the borrower: the first loan interest-free and repeat loans at no more than 5pc, the state paying the difference. Pay for delivery: lenders earn the subsidy only for verified results, and every loan comes with training and a mentor. Build the exit: the stipend tapers only once the business stands, and the subsidy steps down with each cycle.
Even at today’s rates, that tenth could carry some Rs400bn of lending: over a million small businesses. Audit it independently after three years; scale it only if it works.
Two objections deserve answers. Credit alone, global trials show, raises poor families’ incomes only modestly; what lifts them for good is capital paired with training and continued support while the business finds its feet, which is this design. Nor does the window raid BISP: it is paid for from the programme’s growth and serves the same households.
It is time to retire the reflex that subsidies never create wealth or welfare. Bad design is bad; subsidy is not, if it pays for the initial risk rather than permanent inefficiency. Subsidies have built giants, and an emerging economy needs them more, not less.
Washington’s decisive bet on Tesla was not a stipend but a loan, tied to milestones. Pakistan’s Teslas are smaller — a woman’s dairy herd, a tailor’s workshop, a graduate’s laptop — but they deserve the same deal: capital to start, conditions to keep, and a way out. Then the cycle begins again with the next borrower. That is routine in every quintessential capitalist economy, and it should be in Pakistan too.
The writer is a development-focused and impact-oriented banker.
PARLIAMENT has recently been debating the future of Pakistani democracy, but those debates will be for naught unless our leaders also develop the capacity to acknowledge each other’s positions.
The past two days have seen the government and opposition benches trading blame for democracy’s present, rather sorry state.
On Wednesday, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman accused the government of misusing the Constitution and resorting to unconstitutional measures. He also said his party was “prepared to die” resisting the government if the latter continued pursuing a policy of confrontation and violence, and proposed a new Charter of Democracy as the way out.
Regretting that his efforts to mediate between the government and the PTI had failed because the government had changed course and imposed an emergency and governor’s rule in KP, the maulana said the political leadership had grown too intolerant for parliament to do its job.
He was not wrong, though the fault is hardly the government’s alone.
The maulana’s rebuke drew two kinds of response. Minister of Defence Khawaja Asif resorted to personal attacks, insinuating that the JUI-F chief was merely sore at being denied a share of power in KP.
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, on the other hand, was more circumspect. Though he, too, laid much of the blame for parliament’s dysfunction on the opposition, he nonetheless urged it to exercise its powers and return to parliamentary committees.
“Those who want this House to remain dysfunctional and do not want the people of Pakistan to benefit from it have succeeded,” he told the opposition benches. “You have played a part in helping these people achieve their objective.” It was a surprisingly candid admission that the House’s dysfunction serves interests other than the people’s, even if the PPP chief left out his own party’s role in getting us here.
They may have yet to come to terms with it, but both ruling and opposition parties have lost credibility and political ground due to their ongoing vendetta. The maulana’s call for a new Charter of Democracy, though welcome, looks difficult to realise when the two sides cannot even agree to sit together in parliamentary committees.
The imposition of emergency and governor’s rule in KP was a gross misstep by the federal government, and it has spoiled the chances of a negotiated settlement. But the opposition, too, has gained little from confrontation.
Unless both sides start to show some flexibility on key matters, make compromises and enter negotiations without preconditions, they risk further deepening this crisis of their own making.
If enough lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are willing to admit that matters have gone too far, there may yet be hope for parliament, and for Pakistani democracy. The question is, are they ready to do so?
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan remained deeply hostile to journalism and its practitioners in 2025-26 despite a decline in documented violations against media workers, according to a new report issued by an Islamabad-based media watchdog.
“About 10 cases a month [against media personnel], their nationwide spread and severity in the period showed that fewer violations did not mean greater safety,” stated Freedom Network’s latest annual Impunity Report 2026, titled “From Violence to Lawfare: Process as Punishment for Journalists”.
Produced with technical assistance from International Media Support (IMS), the report was authored by journalist Adnan Rehmat and Freedom Network Executive Director Iqbal Khattak.
It finds that “impunity has evolved from a failure to punish violence into a broader system of coercion”.
Peca increasingly used to punish dissent, says Freedom Network report
The report was released on Thursday ahead of the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, observed worldwide, including in Pakistan, on Nov 2 each year.
“Despite the presence on the statute books of two laws to combat impunity for crimes against journalists, such a finding should be a matter of concern for those at the helm of affairs of the two safety commissions established under these laws,” Mr Khattak said.
Cases documented between October 2025 and August 2026 included one work-related killing, three attempted assassinations, 18 threats of murder or harm, 11 assaults, 13 legal actions and 32 threats of legal action.
Punjab recorded 49 cases, just over half the total, followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamabad and Balochistan. Digital and independent journalists were targeted most often. Victims or their families identified government authorities and officials as alleged instigators in nearly two-thirds of the cases.
The report identifies the controversial Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (Peca) and its increasing use against journalists by the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) to punish dissent as “central to this legal siege” of online journalism in the country.
‘Recurring pattern’
A detailed analysis of representative Peca-related cases against journalists reveals a recurring pattern in which allegations of defamation, false information, harassment or reputational harm are channelled through cybercrime procedures, including in cases involving reporting on public expenditure, corruption or official conduct.
Even without a confirmed FIR or conviction, the process itself becomes “punitive” through summonses, device scrutiny, travel, legal costs, detention, repeated hearings, and reputational harm, the report says.
It adds that relief is commonly limited to bail or procedural protection rather than final vindication.
The report also provides guidelines for journalists and other media practitioners facing Peca-related cases to help minimise the harmful effects of legal action.
It expresses concern over the lack of institutional safeguards for media workers despite the establishment of two high-powered safety commissions, one at the federal level and the other in Sindh.
“The federal journalist protection mechanism is effectively dysfunctional, while the Sindh Commission, although more visible, has limited reach and demonstrated protection impact outside Karachi,” it says.
• Achakzai questions govt’s handling of Tehran diplomacy, Afghanistan ties • Senate resolution seeks coordinated national action to curb population growth
ISLAMABAD: Lawmakers in the National Assembly and Senate on Thursday raised concerns over the political situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and alleged human rights violations, while both houses also discussed electoral reforms and the need to strengthen parliamentary institutions.
National Assembly Opposition Leader Mehmood Khan Achakzai criticised the government for failing to take parliament into confidence over recent diplomatic developments in Tehran.
“How can four people decide the future of the whole nation?” he asked, warning that such decisions could push the country towards “anarchy and civil war”.
Mr Achakzai also opposed the suspension of trade with Afghanistan, describing Afghans as traditional friends of Pakistan and criticising the country’s past policies towards its neighbour.
PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan said the parliamentary proceedings and the prevailing political situation in KP were creating a negative impression among the public. He also called for an end to hereditary politics in the country.
Rights concerns raised
Meanwhile, speaking on a point of order in the Senate, PTI parliamentary leader Barrister Syed Ali Zafar accused the government of undermining constitutional protections through the imposition of emergency and governor’s rule in KP.
He argued that fundamental human rights could not be suspended or compromised, regardless of the political situation. “There is one thing that cannot be broken, suspended or compromised: the fundamental human rights of the people of Pakistan,” he said.
Mr Zafar expressed concern over the detention of Noreen Niazi, sister of jailed PTI founder Imran Khan, claiming that she had suffered a heart attack and was hospitalised but her family was not being allowed to meet her.
Responding to the concerns, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah said Noreen Niazi had been provided medical treatment in Lahore and was in satisfactory condition.
On allegations that her family was being denied access, Mr Sanaullah assured the house that details would be sought and the matter addressed according to the circumstances.
He defended her detention, alleging that she had sought to create unrest by mobilising people for a protest march towards Islamabad.
Senate Opposition Leader Allama Raja Nasir Abbas also criticised the government’s actions in KP, alleging that the province had been “snatched from the people”.
He also questioned the imposition of emergency and governor’s rule in KP, arguing that democratic institutions could not function without respect for the law.
Population growth resolution
Separately, the Senate passed a resolution calling for urgent and coordinated national action to address the challenges posed by the country’s rapidly growing population.
The resolution, moved by PPP Vice President Senator Sherry Rehman, called for a comprehensive national response to population growth and its impact on public services and socioeconomic development.
Ms Rehman said Pakistan’s population was projected to reach approximately 390 million by 2050 at the current growth rate, placing unprecedented pressure on national resources.
ISLAMABAD: A private think tank has found more fiscal faults than benefits of the much-discussed creation of new provinces, advising priority to stronger local governments instead of new provinces if public service delivery was actually intended.
In its latest market analysis release on Thursday, Policy Research Institute of Market Economy (Prime) highlighted the additional annual recurring cost of Rs47 billion to Rs57bn in case of creation of two more provinces — South Punjab, Bahawalpur and remaining Punjab — and up to Rs730bn if 30 divisional units were to upgrade to provincial status.
“Any proposal for creating new provinces should include a formal fiscal costing exercise before constitutional or legislative changes are pursued”, the think tank said, adding that the costing should estimate the recurring expenditure required for the governor, chief minister, provincial assembly, secretariat, high court and other core institutions, together with the likely NFC resource envelope of each proposed unit. This would make it possible to assess whether the expected administrative benefits justify the additional recurring burden,” it said.
If the number of provinces increases to six, South Punjab receives an illustrative allocation of Rs1tr under the existing NFC, while Bahawalpur receives Rs537bn. In case of 30 provinces, allocations differ considerably, ranging from Rs7201bn for Lahore and Rs691bn for Karachi to Rs46bn for Loralai and Rs50bn for Zhob. Thus 11 of the 30 proposed units receive less than Rs150bn per annum.
Think tank puts annual recurring bill at Rs47-57bn for two provinces and up to Rs730bn for 30
The estimated annual recurring cost of a new provincial government is Rs22.4bn under the low-cost scenario and Rs25.9bn under the high-cost scenario, therefore Rs47-56bn per annum for two and Rs610-730bn for 30 provinces.
Using a 10pc fiscal sustainability benchmark based on the low recurring-cost estimate, 16 of the 30 proposed provinces would remain at or below the threshold, while 14 exceed it. The burden is particularly high in the smallest units: the core provincial structure would absorb around 49pc of Loralai’s allocation, 45pc of Zhob’s and 37pc of Rakhshan’s even under the low-cost estimate.
Every proposed province with a population below 1.2 million would require more than one-third of its NFC allocation to finance the core provincial government structure.
The findings therefore show that the fiscal implications of restructuring depend strongly on the number and size of the provinces created. Limited restructuring involving relatively large units produces a much smaller recurring burden, whereas several smaller division-based provinces would face disproportionately high administrative costs relative to their expected NFC resources.
Therefore, at the fiscal level, creation of new provinces will put additional pressure on fiscal resources of smaller provinces, especially those with lower NFC allocations and constrained revenue generation capacity. A greater portion of their available resources would be consumed by ongoing government expenses, resulting in reduced fiscal room for other provincial spending, such as public service provision and developmental expenditure, the analysis showed.
Therefore, the think tank emphasised that provincial restructuring should be evaluated not only in political and administrative terms, but also through a clear fiscal framework.
• CPPA seeks Rs2.56 per unit additional fuel cost adjustment to recover Rs33bn • Industrial representatives insist fuel levies inflating generation costs
ISLAMABAD: The manufacturing sector and the power division on Thursday unanimously called for the removal or reduction of the petroleum levy on furnace oil and diesel used for power generation, stressing that it was resulting in about Rs10 per unit additional impact to electricity costs.
The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) conducted the hearing on a request by the Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) to allow distribution companies to charge the additional FCA in November bills. A government official said the proposed adjustment was the highest for comparable months in recent years.
Industrial representatives Amir Shaikh, Arif Bilwani, Tanveer Bari and Rehan Javed, representing various chambers of commerce and industry, said the government was charging substantial petroleum levies — about Rs76,000 per tonne on furnace oil and Rs80 per litre on diesel — which could otherwise be reduced to lower generation costs amid the energy crisis arising from the Iran conflict.
Representatives of entities under the power division confirmed that furnace oil- and diesel-based generation accounted for 3.6 per cent of total power generation in September because of the unavailability of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and other cheaper sources.
Industrial representatives said removing the levies could reduce generation costs from around Rs62 per unit to Rs44-50 per unit.
They argued that the levy was also increasing the government’s subsidy burden, effectively shifting money from one pocket to another.
The representatives said the prime minister had previously removed certain charges to subsidise power tariffs, but the relief had since been discontinued. They also pointed out that continuation of the surplus incremental package was imposing an additional burden of around Rs11 per unit on grid consumers and demanded its immediate suspension.
Naveed Qaiser, chief financial officer of the Power Planning and Monitoring Company (PPMC), agreed that petroleum levies on diesel and furnace oil had a substantial impact on generation costs.
He said the power division had been fighting for their removal or reduction at relevant forums and urged business representatives to continue raising the issue with senior government officials.
Mr Qaiser said reducing electricity tariffs remained a government priority, particularly for industry, to improve competitiveness with regional economies.
He said these efforts had already helped reduce tariffs by around Rs10 per unit for consumers generally and up to Rs18 per unit for industry, achievements that should also be acknowledged.
CPPA’s Rehan Akhtar said the actual fuel cost in September stood at Rs10.022 per unit against the reference rate of Rs7.46, resulting in the request for an additional FCA of Rs2.56 per unit.
He said the total financial impact was estimated at Rs32.76bn, mainly because of changes in the generation fuel mix and higher costs of alternative fuels.
However, he maintained that the net increase in the FCA would not exceed Rs1.45 per unit, as the existing positive adjustment in October would expire and be replaced by the proposed Rs2.56 adjustment in November.
Nepra and industrial representatives also raised concerns over discrepancies in power generation data submitted by the CPPA and demanded greater transparency.
They questioned a previous adjustment of Rs16bn on account of LNG prices, arguing that timely reporting of those prices could have avoided a substantial portion of the proposed additional FCA.
Officials from Nepra’s Monitoring and Enforcement Division also questioned the authenticity and consistency of information supplied by government entities.
Nepra member Amina Ahmed acknowledged the concerns, saying the regulator was aware of the discrepancies but did not want to turn the proceedings into a “circus” by publicly taking up every inconsistency.
Industrial representatives also questioned coal procurement practices at the Port Qasim power plant, alleging that the producer was procuring coal through affiliated entities at prices significantly higher than those paid by other plants.
They demanded a comprehensive investigation, including by the National Accountability Bureau. Nepra assured participants that only prudent coal costs would be allowed and that the producer would have to bear the impact.
Government entities reported a 6.5pc increase in overall power demand in September, including a 6.7pc rise in industrial consumption.
Industry representatives maintained that the higher industrial consumption reflected a shift from captive power generation to the national grid rather than the impact of the incremental package.
Average fuel cost surged by almost 37.5pc year-on-year in September, mainly because expensive, heavily taxed fuels were used to compensate for reduced LNG supplies amid the regional conflict and increased reliance on imported coal.
According to CPPA data, high-speed diesel (HSD) accounted for 213 gigawatt-hours (GWh), or about 1.6pc of total grid supply, at a generation cost of Rs62.14 per unit. This compared with 80GWh generated at Rs54 per unit in August.
Furnace oil-based generation stood at 263GWh in September, down from 321GWh in August, while its generation cost declined to Rs44.86 per unit from around Rs46.
Its share of total generation remained close to 2pc.
LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has held that merely uploading an appellate order to the Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) Inland Revenue Information System (IRIS) does not constitute valid service under the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.
An LHC division bench comprising Justice Mirza Viqas Rauf and Justice Anwaar Hussain decided three connected reference applications led by Tahir Mehmood.
The applications challenged three orders of the Appellate Tribunal Inland Revenue, which had dismissed the taxpayers’ appeals as time-barred on the ground that uploading the orders to IRIS constituted sufficient service.
In one case, the taxpayer argued that Covid-19 and quarantine following a foreign trip had prevented him from accessing the portal. In the other two cases, the taxpayers said they learned of the Commissioner (Appeals)’ orders only after receiving recovery notices in April 2026, months after the orders had been passed.
Justice Anwaar Hussain, who authored the judgement, held that Section 218(1)(d) of the ordinance recognises electronic service only when carried out in the prescribed manner.
He observed that Rule 74 of the Income Tax Rules limits an electronic address to a fax number or an email address and requires confirmation of transmission.
IRIS, by contrast, is an internal, web-based workflow system for tax administration, the judge noted, adding that placing an order in a taxpayer’s account does not establish its transmission to an electronic address as required under the rule.
The judge distinguished between accessibility and service, observing that an order may be accessible without having been served in accordance with the law.
He further held that the limitation period could not begin from an event that the law did not recognise as its starting point.
Rejecting the department’s argument that Rule 74 could not restrict the parent provision, the judge said the requirement of service in the “prescribed manner” was part of the ordinance itself.
The judge also dismissed the contention that taxpayers were required to routinely monitor IRIS.
The judge said the department could not dismiss the pandemic-related explanation, as the correctness of the tribunal’s conclusion involved a question of law that the high court was competent to examine.
Observing that technology was an instrument of statutory administration rather than an independent source of statutory authority, the judge said modernisation could not dispense with legal safeguards.
The court referred to rulings of the Peshawar and Islamabad high courts and the Delhi High Court, as well as Articles 4 and 10A of the Constitution.
The bench set aside the impugned orders and directed the tribunal to decide the appeals afresh on merit.
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