The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday sought responses from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the federal government on a plea filed by lawyer Jibran Nasir against an “unlawful restriction” on his travel.

The court asked the authorities to submit their replies by August 17.

The court action came after the activist — who was “picked up by unidentified men” outside his residence in Karachi in June and released 24 hours later — revealed that he was stopped from travelling to Dubai by the FIA last month.

Taking to social media platform X, Nasir said: “On June 27, my wife and I were scheduled to travel to Dubai via Emirates EK601 to visit my family for Eid and we were scheduled to return to Karachi on July 5.

“We checked in our luggage, got boarding passes, cleared immigration and got the exit stamps but while approaching the departure lounge we were called by an FIA official who appeared to be receiving instructions from someone on his phone.”

The official, he continued, took their passports and read the names to the person he was on the phone with. Nasir quoted the officer as saying “yahi log hain aap kay (these are your people)” after which “we were made to miss our flight, our baggage returned and offloaded stamps affixed on our passports”.

“No formal explanation was given except for ’samjha karain sir, hamain instructions hain aap ko janay nahi dena (please understand sir, we have been given instruction to not allow you to leave),” the activist said.

Nasir said neither he nor his wife received any information pertaining to the matter from the interior ministry. He also shared photos of passports, which showed an “offloaded” stamp.

Recalling his “abduction”, the lawyer said: “On June 1, I was abducted by around 15 armed men who acted with the confidence and bravado of having official authority and during their captivity I was asked to give up on my human rights work and cases.”

He stated that he saw the restriction on his family’s travel as the continuation of the “unlawful and unconstitutional tactics adopted on June 1 to harass and intimidate” him and his family.

“Neither do I intend to give up on my human rights work and political activism nor do I have any intention to move out of Pakistan. Will stay here and will keep resisting unlawful and unconstitutional policies and actions of any and all institutions,” Nasir added.

The petition

The petition filed by Nasir in court — a copy of which is available with Dawn.com — named the federal and Sindh governments, directorate general of Immigration and Passports, secretary of aviation ministry and FIA director general as respondents.

It stated that the Constitution protected the fundamental rights of the petitioner and “any violation of the fundamental rights of the petitioner without any due course of law is illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional”.

“It is a fundamental right of a person to travel abroad and the same is protected under Articles 4, 9, 14, 15, 18 and 25 of the Constitution, which pertains to the important issue of personal liberty, right to due process and dignity, freedom to travel and profession. Hence, any restriction on a person to leave the country or enter the country is equivalent to imposing physical restraint on a person which is in violation of fundamental rights,” the plea contended.

Nasir said in the application that despite the incident of his abduction, the respondents “instead of ensuring the fundamental rights of the petitioner and his family in accordance with the law and providing a sense of security in their own country” were instead subjecting the petitioner to “harassment, ridicule and mental agony and being made to feel like criminals with arbitrary restrictions being placed on them such as the refusal to travel freely”.

The petition further highlighted that the only mechanism in the law to impose an embargo on citizens from travelling abroad was under the ambit of the Exit from Pakistan (Control) Ordinance, 1981, and the Exit from Pakistan (Control) Rules, 2010. However, it said, neither Nasir nor his wife had been placed on the Exit Control List and were also not subjects of any investigation.

It also referred to previous verdicts issued by courts that held that travel abroad was considered a fundamental right.

“The failure of the respondents to provide any reason, let alone justification, for causing hindrance in the petitioner’s travel, prima facie shows that the same is unwarranted and illegal.”

The petition added that Nasir and his family were expected to travel to UAE and USA for “proposed university talks” but “due to the actions of the respondents the petitioner neither can finalise nor conclude any travel plans and is not only suffering from uncertainty but also as a consequent loss on professional engagements”.

It subsequently urged the court to declare actions of offloading Nasir and restraining his travel abroad “illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional”.

“Permanently and during pendency of this petition, restrain the respondents from disallowing/stopping the petitioner from exiting Pakistan and travelling abroad and creating any hindrance in such travel except in accordance with law,” the petition prayed.

It also sought an inquiry on the officers who stopped the activist and his wife from travelling abroad and compensate Nasir against all charges/fines/penalties imposed while seeking refunds of the tickets.

“Direct the Respondents to issue a letter in the name of the Petitioner vide the concerned authority admitting that the act of offloading him from Flight EK601 on 27.06.2023 was unlawful so that the Petitioner may have same for easy reference if facing any query or explanation regarding the offloading incident while applying for visa for seeking entry in another country,” it added.

Furthermore, the plea asked the court to direct the respondents to pay general damages of Rs1 million for causing Nasir and his wife “mental agony, harassment, ridicule and embarrassment in public”.

“Direct the Respondents to pay Rs1,000,000 to the petitioner under exemplary/punitive damages for infringing his and his wife’s fundamental constitutional rights and freedoms,” it concluded.