Supreme Court Allows Reuse of Inactive SIM Cards, Mandates Privacy Protection

Kathmandu. The Supreme Court has cleared the way for telecom operators to recycle and reissue long-inactive SIM cards, while mandating strict privacy protections for previous users and requiring a mechanism to reserve numbers upon customer request temporarily.

The full text of a verdict issued by a joint bench of Supreme Court justices Dr. Manoj Kumar Sharma and Mahesh Sharma Paudel on January 9, 2025, was recently made public. Earlier, following a writ petition filed by advocate Sapana Bhandari in January 2023, the court had issued an interim order halting the recycling and resale of inactive SIM cards.