PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has directed the government to ensure strict adherence to legal requirements and constitutional safeguards while placing any citizen’s name on the Exit Control List (ECL) or any other such list.

A bench consisting of Justice Sahibzada Asadullah and Justice Dr Khurshid Iqbal sought a comprehensive report from the interior ministry and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in a petition filed by former provincial minister and leader of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Taimur Saleem Khan Jhagra, with the direction to explain the circumstances which compelled them to place his name in the ECL or any other such like lists.

It ruled: “It is obligatory upon the concerned authorities that whenever a citizen’s name is proposed to be placed or is placed in ECL, PNIL (Provisional National Identification List) or PCL (Passport Control List), the same must be supported by cogent and legally sustainable reasons, and the individual concerned must be promptly informed in writing so that he may avail the remedy of representation or review guaranteed by law. Failure to do so amounts to violation of fundamental rights and principles of natural justice.”

The court declared that it directed authorities to ensure strict adherence to statutory requirements and constitutional safeguards while taking such coercive measures, failing which could prompt it to exercise its constitutional jurisdiction to undo any illegal or unjustified action taken against a citizen.

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Mr Jhagra had requested the court to declare illegal and without lawful authority the inclusion of his name in the PNIL, Stop List or ECL. He sought directives of the court for the respondents to remove his name from PNIL, Stop List or ECL, being placed illegally and unconstitutionally and he may also be allowed to go abroad.

The PTI leader further requested the court to direct the respondents for the making of the lists i.e., ECL/stop list/PNIL to be made public when the name of any individual was added to it, to ensure that the rights are protected per Article 10-A of the Constitution as citizens of this country.

“This court is conscious of the fact that the right to liberty, freedom of movement and to seek livelihood whether within Pakistan or abroad, are constitutionally protected rights under Articles 15, 18 and 25 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973,” the bench ruled.

It added that any restriction on such rights must be imposed strictly in accordance with the law, upon just, fair, transparent and reasonable grounds, and after providing the affected person a meaningful opportunity of hearing.

Advocate Ali Gohar Durrani appeared for the petitioner and contended that his client remained a former MPA and had also served as provincial minister for health and finance.

He said that the petitioner for business reasons traveled abroad frequently, but had been made a victim of the highhandedness by the respondents, wherein on one pretext or another, his travel was somehow restricted.

Mr Durrani said that for the redress of the grievance, the petitioner approached the high court and was granted the legal relief in its constitutional jurisdiction.

He contended that so much was the level of harassment, that when they allowed the petitioner to travel, his 18-year-old daughter was put on the Stop List to ensure her academic year was wasted.

The lawyer, however, said, with the intervention of this court, she was allowed to travel to the United States for her education in Aug this year.

He said that the petitioner was due to travel abroad, so he had got his tickets confirmed for that matter.

Mr Durrani said that the petitioner had been informed that he had been once again placed on one of the lists but no copy of it was provided to him.

He added the petitioner had written to the secretary of the Interior Division for information about it, and removal of name. However, the same had not been responded to, according to him.

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2025