Sindh High Court ordered on Wednesday that internet access should not be hindered anywhere in the country and asked authorities to submit a reply on how recent outages took place.

A two-member bench of the Court under Chief Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi took up a petition filed by PS-110 candidate Jibran Nasir after widespread disruptions to internet across the country in recent days.

The petitioner had argued that disruptions to the internet were unjustified and were causing hurdles in the way of electoral campaigning.

The ministries of interior and IT as well as the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority were made parties in the case. All parties have been issued notices to submit a response by January 29.

Internet access as well as social media apps had been disrupted on December 17, January 7 and January 20.

The government has maintained that the internet outages took place due to technical faults and software upgradations. However, many quarters have raised questions over the timing of the outages which seem to coincide with online events organised by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.