ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court on Wednesday set aside the decision of National Database and Registration Authority about blocking the computerized national identity card of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl leader Hafiz Hamdullah and ruled that the authority acted in an “arbitrary and reckless” manner.
IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah announced the decision on a petition filed by Hamdullah, challenging the blockage of his CNIC.
The chief justice said that nationality is someone’s basic human right and the NADRA was not authorised to remove it. He further questioned that how NADRA could view the report of intelligence agencies.
The bench asked the NADRA representative to provide the details of other cases, in which it had taken the same decisions on the basis of such reports.
Expressing annoyance, the chief justice asked the NADRA representative that whether they know what could be the results of blocking CNIC of someone even for one day.
Justice Minallah also asked that under what law the NADRA had established district committees.
However, after detailed arguments, the court dismissed the NADRA’s decision, blocking Hafiz Hamdullah’s CNIC.
The judgement stated that Hamdullah was born in a remote town of Balochistan “and this crucial fact has not been denied” by the government. His father Qari Wali Mohammad was employed by the government of Balochistan.
“He and his father have lived in Pakistan all their lives. They own properties and the petitioner has held various public offices as an elected representative,” the order said, noting that his son had the distinction of having been accepted as a commissioned officer in the armed forces of Pakistan.
“There could not have been a more glaring example of arbitrary and reckless action by [NADRA] of purportedly depriving a registered citizen of his citizenship and that too when [it] had no jurisdiction under the ordinance of 2000 to do so,” it added.
Hamdullah had lost his citizenship in October 2019 when NADRA declared him an “alien”. He had subsequently challenged NADRA’s notification of revoking his citizenship in the IHC.
NADRA, in its written reply, had referred to intelligence reports, claiming that Hamdullah was not a Pakistani national. It had taken the stance that intelligence agencies had claimed that Hamdullah’s credentials were also fake and subsequently his computerised national identity card had been cancelled.
