Court reverts decision to arrest MTN Executives

The Accra Fast Track High Court, Thursday awarded cost of GH¢1,000 against three top officials of Mobile Telecommunications Network (MTN) for disobeying its orders to restore mobile telecommunications service to an aggrieved customer.

This was after the court had rescinded its decision to order the arrest of the respondents for failing to attend court for the third time to justify why they should not be held in contempt of court.

The respondents are the Chief Executive Officer, Mr Michael Ikpoki, the Customer Relations Executive, Ms Jemima Kotei and the Chief Technical Officer, Mr Jon Hoffman.

The court rescinded its decision after lawyers for the respondents pleaded for revision of the court’s order.

The plea was not opposed by the plaintiff, Dr Raymond A. Atuguba, who represented himself.

The three are expected to appear in person before the court, presided over by Justice Edward Amoako-Asante, on October 2, 2012.

Dr Atuguba, an aggrieved customer who is also a legal practitioner, on June 29, 2012 sued SCANCOM Gh. Ltd. operators of MTN for the truncation of service to his mobile phone line.

Following the filing of the suit, the court in July, 2012 ordered the mobile operators to restore all communication services to the MTN line of Dr Atuguba but it failed to do so.

Despite the court’s order, the respondents failed to reconnect the plaintiff’s cellular line and that resulted in him filing a motion of contempt against the respondents on August 15, 2012.

Because contempt proceedings instituted against the respondents are quasi criminal, they were expected to appear in person but they failed to do so on August 15, 2012, September 17 and Thursday, September 27, 2012.

Source: Daily Graphic