KARACHI, Feb 13: The Sindh High Court asked the federal government on Friday to state positively on Feb 18 whether it intended to reschedule the deadline for 'cancellation' or 'invalidation' of the old identity cards , and stayed the operation of the cancellation decision in the meanwhile.

The National Database and Registration Authority had stated in its detailed comments on Thursday that the old cards were scrapped by the Nadra Ordinance issued in March 2000 with the law (the National Registration Act, 1973) under which they were issued.

The cards were, however, validated for two years to facilitate fresh registration. The federal government was empowered to extend the validity period.

The period was extended from time to time till January 31. Every citizen was obliged to register afresh and failure to do so was made punishable by the March 2000 ordinance.

Nadra counsel M. Afnan submitted that there was no question of cancellation of the old cards, which were invalidated by the new ordinance. Only the federal government could extend the period of their validity.

So far as Nadra was concerned, it believed that extensions put a premium on indolence. An unusually large number of applications were received by it after the announcement of the cut-off date, he informed the division bench hearing the petition.

Deputy Attorney-General Syed Zaki Mohammad requested the bench, which consisted of Justices Anwar Zaheer Jamali and S. Ali Aslam Jafri, to spell out the difference between 'cancellation' and invalidation'.

He was asked by the bench to definitely state how the government intended to deal with the matter and whether a new cut-off date was due to be announced.

Petitioner-lawyer Shaukat Ali Shaikh submitted in his rejoinder to the Nadra comments that only those old cards could be 'cancelled' or 'invalidated' whose holders had obtained new, computerized cards.

Nadra was also under an obligation to register the citizens afresh and furnish them new cards. It was not fair to shift the entire responsibility on the citizenry. The forms were not easy to fill in and registration facilities not available everywhere.

Referring to the preamble of the Nadra Ordinance, the lawyer asserted that it was meant 'to facilitate the registration of all persons and the establishment and maintenance of a multipurpose database, data warehouses, networking, interfacing of databases and related facilities'.

The authority was apparently more concerned with the invalidation of the old cards than with the 'registration of all persons' and compilation of a national database. If forged (non-computerized) cards were in existence in large numbers, corruption in the registration machinery and not the poor citizens whose cards were being cancelled were to blame for it.