Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has asked the Union government to limit the number of prepaid SIM cards to one per person. This was issued as part of an interim order in the Sumit Nandwani V/S State of Haryana litigation.
A restriction of this magnitude could effectively curb cybercrime incidents, as well as reduce financial frauds and the exploitation of individuals and their assets.
Sumit Nandwani the alleged accused in this case, had 35 prepaid SIM cards in his name that were used to cheat people out of which 12 SIM cards are still active. This was as per an affidavit, filed by Dr. Rajesh Mohan, IPS, Assistant Superintendent of Police.
According to a Department of Telecommunications regulation, an individual can have a maximum of 9 SIM cards on a single ID. The Aadhaar card is a legal document that service providers accept when providing new SIM cards.
“Given the Aadhar Card is exclusively linked to a single SIM card for OTP generation, there seems to be no justification for the issuance of multiple prepaid SIM cards,” the Punjab and Haryana High Court observed.
Furthermore, the Court suggested that the SIM card holders could be given the option to convert theirvalidated SIM card into a post-paid one, with a directive for service providers to disconnect all other prepaid SIM cards by a specified deadline
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