Ayyan Ali on ECL: Court upholds registrar office’s objections

Office maintains petitioner not an aggrieved party.

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday upheld the objections raised by its registrar office on a petition seeking the court’s directives for the interior ministry to put model Ayyan Ali’s name on the exit control list (ECL).

Petitioner Arshad Mehmood Butt had prayed the court to issue orders to probe if the model had paid taxes on the cash she carried on her total 81 trips out of the country.

The IHC registrar office raised objection that the petitioner has no locus standi (the right of a party to be heard by a court) to raise such issues. The registrar office has maintained that the petitioner was in no manner an aggrieved party to raise questions over the issue.

IHC Justice Noorul Haq Qureshi while upholding the registrar office’s objections noted that the petitioner did not obtain adequate remedy by going to an alternative forum and, instead, directly petitioned the court. The court also observed that the petition did not have supportive documents to show that the petitioner himself was a taxpayer.

In the petition, the petitioner has quoted a letter written by an intelligence agency to the interior ministry which said that the money smuggled through the model could be used to finance terrorism in the country.

He prayed to investigate Ayyan’s bank accounts to ascertain the actual identity of the person who had transferred the money on her account.

Ayyan was arrested from the Benazir Bhutto International Airport Islamabad on March 14 by Customs authorities and a case was registered against her for attempting to transport $506,800 abroad. Ayyan was recently granted bail but a Customs court in Rawalpindi is hearing the case.

Case adjourned, again

The Special Customs Court on Friday adjourned hearing into the money laundering case against Ayyan till September 4. The model appeared before the court of Judge Rana Aftab Ahmed Khan but the hearing was postponed due to the incomplete charge-sheet submitted in the court. It was earlier reported that the suspected money launderer would be charged on Friday.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 22^nd, 2015.