ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday set aside the National Database and Registration Authority’s (Nadra) notification of revoking the citizenship of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leader Hafiz Hamdullah.

On Oct 11, 2019 Mr Hamdullah lost his citizenship when Nadra declared him an ‘alien’.

Subsequently, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) banned his appearance on TV channels.

IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah has termed Pemra’s notification as “misuse of authority”.

Justice Minallah allowed the petition of Hamdullah against Nadra’s notification. He cited Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court Earl Warren in his dissenting opinion in the case titled ‘Clemente Martinez Perez v. Herbert Brownell, Jr., Attorney General of the United States of America’ [356 U.S 44 (1958)] that ‘citizenship is man’s basic right for it is nothing less than the right to have rights. Remove this priceless possession and there remains a stateless person, disgraced and degraded in the eyes of his countrymen’.

Nadra took the stance before the IHC that intelligence agencies had claimed that Mr Hamdullah’s credentials were fake and subsequently his computerised national identity card had been cancelled.

Mr Hamdullah, who was a senator from Balochistan from 2012 to 2018, frequently makes appearances in evening talk shows on different news channels.

Advocate Kamran Murtaza, who filed a petition on behalf of Mr Hamdullah, informed the court that the petitioner was born in the province of Balochistan and that his father, children and other family members held CNICs. One of Mr Hamdullah’s children was serving in the armed forces as a commissioned officer.

Justice Minallah directed Nadra to restore the CNIC of the petitioner forthwith.

The court declared that Pemra’s notification to bar Hamdullah’s appearance on television channels was tantamount to misuse of authority and “it was issued in derogation of the rights guaranteed under Articles 19 and 19-A of the Constitution”.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2021