KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday allowed former president Dr Arif Alvi to withdraw up to Rs1 million from one of his frozen bank accounts.

However, the SHC said that all other bank accounts of ex-president and his family members would remain blocked and also directed the head of National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) to ensure the presence of inquiry officer at next hearing.

Dr Alvi, his wife Samina Alvi and son Awab Alvi had approached the SHC seeking directives for respondents to unfreeze their bank accounts.

The petitioners said that the NCCIA had reportedly mailed an undated letter to all commercial banks in which the petitioners held accounts and directing them to block the bank accounts in question citing Section 25 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2010 and the Section 5 of the Federal Investigation Agency Act, 1974.

At the outset of hearing on Thursday, various lawyers filed powers of attorney on behalf of respondents and the bench directed them to ensure that comments be filed before the next hearing.

The bench noted that the IO was not able to appear before the court as he was said to be in Islamabad and an additional director of NNCIA turned up to represent him.

However, he also said that he was unfamiliar with the case and unable to provide any assistance to the bench while the NNCIA had blocked the bank accounts of the petitioners for offences under various provisions of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, the Pakistan Penal Code and other laws.

The counsel for the petitioners Ali Tahir argued that all bank accounts of petitioners had been blocked and they had no access to any of these bank accounts.

The bench further noted that in the absence of IO, it was unable at this point to fully comprehend the issue at hand as to why these accounts had been blocked.

Thereafter, it allowed Mr Alvi to withdraw up to Rs1 million from one of his bank accounts located at the Parliament House in Islamabad as informed by his counsel, for his general living expenses until the next hearing.

All other accounts in question will remain blocked, it added.

The bench said that IO Asim Shahjehan must appear on June 19, along with relevant record and director general of NICCA should ensure presence of the IO at the next hearing.

Earlier, petitioners had contended that the NCCIA had also reportedly initiated baseless inquiries against Mr Alvi under Sections 298 (uttering words, etc, with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings) and 298-A (use of derogatory remarks, etc, in respect of holy personages) of the Pakistan Penal Code pertaining to extremely sensitive blasphemy-related allegations.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2025