Ayyan can leave the country, rules SC

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court Monday (today) 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.

A three-member bench headed by Justice Saqib Nisar dismissed the interior ministry’s appeal.

Chief Justice Saqib Nisar said it seemed as if the government wanted to keep the model in the country by hook or by crook.

The lawyer representing the ministry argued that the model’s name was added to the ECL on a request of the Punjab home department and that is why the SHC should have listened to their arguments as to why the name was added to the list before handing out the verdict.

Read more: Interior ministry challenges removal of Ayyan’s name from ECL

On Saturday, the interior ministry moved the top court against the SHC’s January 19 order for removing Ayyan’s name from the ECL. Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Sajid Ilyas Bhatti filed a petition on behalf of the ministry, contending that while the high court could examine the legality of including a person’s name on ECL, granting permission to the accused to go abroad was “beyond its jurisdiction” under article 199(1) of the Constitution.

The petition stated that any person whose name had been placed on the no-fly list could only seek permission for travelling abroad from the court in which his or her case was being tried, not from the high court.

The ministry also argued that referee judge Naimatullah Phulpoto “relied upon the opinion of Justice Muhammad Karim Khan Agha, and did not even discuss the observations … of the other member of the bench while disagreeing with his opinion.” Justice Phulpoto was appointed as a referee by the SHC chief justice after Justice KK Agha accepted Ayyan’s plea while the other judge on the bench dismissed it.

A customs court in November 2015 indicted Ayyan for attempting to smuggle more than $500,000 in foreign currency, to which she 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 boarded a flight to Dubai. She was granted bail in July last year after spending nearly four months in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail — and after her judicial remand was extended at least 16 times.