The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday, decided to uphold its decision to remove Ayyan Ali's name from the Exit Control List.

A three-member bench headed by Justice Saqib Nisar also discarded the contempt of court applications that both sides, Ayyan Ali the defendant and the Interior Ministry the petitioner, had filed against each other.

The Chief Justice said that if the court's orders are not upheld, the matter would be dealt with in the SC and not sent to a lower court.

Earlier in the case, on Jan 30 the SC discarded the interior ministry's appeal to keep model Ayyan Ali's name on the Exit Control List (ECL) and upheld the Sindh High Court's verdict to remove her name from the same.

Ayyan was nominated in a case relating to the customs officer's murder, who was killed in 2015 while he was allegedly investigating the money laundering case involving the model.

The Ayyan saga

The interior ministry on a court directive had removed her name from the ECL, but it was again included in the list after a few hours.

The model later filed a contempt of court application against the federal government for not allowing her to travel abroad despite the court's directive to strike her name off ECL.

The model had approached the court initially in Dec 2015 requesting the removal of her name from the exit control list. Her counsel had maintained that having her name on the ECL was illegal as authorities had returned her passport.

During a hearing of her case last year, the model said she was required to travel abroad for professional assignments and medical treatment, and since she had been released from jail on bail, her name should be struck off the ECL.

She said the authorities’ decision to disallow her from travelling abroad was a violation of her fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 18 of the Constitution.

A customs court in Nov 2015 indicted Ayyan for attempting to smuggle more than half a million dollars in cash out of the country, to which she has pleaded not guilty.

The model was arrested on March 14, 2015, on charges of money laundering after customs officials recovered $506,000 from her luggage at Islamabad’s Benazir Bhutto International Airport before she could reportedly board a flight to Dubai.

She was granted bail in July last year after spending around four months in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail — and after her judicial remand was extended at least 16 times.

The case against the model took a political turn when the airport entry pass of the personal assistant to a former president was cancelled for allegedly trying to facilitate Ayyan’s suspected attempt to smuggle money.

Later in June 2015, a customs official who was allegedly investigating the money laundering case involving the model was shot dead.