The legality of the registration of SIM cards using the Ghana card as the source document was the subject of a nine-person petition that the Accra High Court dismissed.

The applicants used the High Court's supervisory jurisdiction to ask the court to overturn the Minister of Communications' choice to make the Ghana Card the only form of registration.

Additionally, the applicants asked the court to overturn a Ministry order requiring everyone to register within a particular time frame or face having their SIM cards disabled.

However, in a judgment, the court, presided over by Justice Charles Ekow Baiden, held that the applicants failed to prove that the National Communications Authority acted arbitrarily or in excess of its powers.

As part of the ruling, the court held that:

1. The NCA has the full legal mandate to conduct the SIM registration exercise

2. That the NCA has not exceeded its powers or breached the natural justice principle as there have been sufficient extensions of the deadlines for the registration exercise.

3. The National Identity Register, 2021. Regulation 7 of L.I.2111 gives the NCA power to limit the National Identity document for the purpose of SIM registration to the Ghana card only.

4. Dictates of national security and the need to prevent crime make it imperative that the NCA undertakes the SIM registration exercise