KARACHI, Dec 16: Pakistan People's Party leader Asif Ali Zardari, spouse of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, moved the Sindh High Court on Thursday against the government's refusal to issue him a passport.

In a petition filed through Advocate Farooq H. Naek, he said he wanted to proceed abroad to meet his wife and children after eight long years in jail. But the passport office declined to issue him a passport on the ground that his name had been placed on the exit control list.

He was neither served a show cause notice, nor informed why his name was being put on the ECL. The ECL law conferred arbitrary powers on the executive. The petitioner said his freedom of movement and the right to travel abroad had arbitrarily and unlawfully been curtailed in violation of Articles 2-A, 4, 9, 15 and 25 of the Constitution and Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The petitioner requested the court to strike down the Exit from Pakistan (Control) Ordinance, 1981, as being repugnant to the Constitution, declare unconstitutional the ban imposed on him, suspend the operation of the impugned list and direct the passport office to furnish him a passport.