LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday scolded an official of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for submitting a reply without signatures of the concerned authority to a petition of Moonis Elahi’s wife challenging the inclusion of her name in the stop list.

The director FIA present in the court sought an apology and undertook to submit a fresh reply as per the court’s directions. The court giving chance to file reply properly adjourned the hearing till January 27. Earlier, the court observed that the FIA director was asked to submit the reply but an assistant director signed it instead.

The court asked FIA director, present in the court, whether he wanted to perform his official responsibilities or do politics. The court also noted that no inquiry or a case was lodged against the petitioner. The court observed that the impugned decision of the FIA appeared to have been made on political considerations.

The reply filed by the agency revealed that the passport of petitioner had not been blocked. It said the agency placed the petitioner in the stop list on the instructions of federal monitoring unit.

Petitioner Tehreem Elahi submitted through her counsel that she was going abroad on January 10 but the immigration officials at the Lahore Airport did not allow her to go abroad. She said the officials informed her that her name was on the no-fly list and she could not leave the country.

The petitioner contended that the interior ministry had targeted her on political grounds after her husband and father-in-law decided to stand by PTI Chairman Imran Khan. She asked the court to set aside the impugned action of the ministry and allow her to go abroad.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023