LAHORE, March 2: A three-member bench of the Supreme Court has allowed a local entrepreneur to go abroad once only for three months on an appeal seeking exclusion of his name from the Exit Control List (ECL).

The bench granting the appellant permission directed him to give a bank guarantee of Rs15 million as security and also a personal bond of the same amount.

The bench comprised Justice Munir A Sheikh, Justice Tanvir Ahmad Khan and Justice Faqir Muhammad Khokhar.

The appeal filed by Iftikhar Shafi through his counsel Khwaja Ahmad Tariq Rahim submitted that the appellant’s name was arbitrarily placed on the ECL, even though the appellant had neither been declared a defaulter by any agency nor was any criminal case pending against him.

He submitted that the interior ministry at the behest of the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan placed his name on the ECL without giving any reason.

He informed the court that his petition in this regard was disposed of by the Lahore High Court with a direction to the authorities concerned to decide the matter within four weeks, but he was not allowed to go abroad.

Deputy Attorney General Nawaz Bhatti appearing before the court said that about Rs720 million liabilities were due against the appellant with the stock exchange, if he was allowed to go abroad, he would abscond and investors would suffer.

The appellant prayed the court to grant him a one time permission to travel abroad to attend to some urgent business work outside Pakistan.—APP