Gill is granted permission by LHC to go to the States for a total of four weeks.
The court overrules the arguments to its jurisdiction while also requesting responses from the government.
LAHORE:
Shahbaz Gill, the leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), was given permission by the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday to visit the US for four weeks.
A plea asking for the removal of Gill’s name from the Exit Control List was being heard by a three-member panel led by LHC Chief Judge (CJ) Muhammad Ameer Bhatti (ECL).
CJ Bhatti questioned why the name of the PTI leader had been added to the list barring him from leaving Pakistan as the proceedings got underway.
Gill had been charged in many crimes in Islamabad, the federal government’s attorney revealed to the court, and he had been added to the ECL at the request of commissioner Islamabad.
The attorney said, “Since this subject relates to Islamabad, this court lacks jurisdiction to consider the present petition.”
He added asserted that Gill had previously requested authorization from the federal authorities to go internationally.
He said, “This issue needs to be discussed at the next cabinet meeting.
Gill’s attorney, on the other hand, claimed that the petitioner’s name had been added on the list “illegally.”
The LHC heard the arguments, gave Gill permission to leave the country for four weeks, and asked the federal government to respond by the next hearing.
Petition
Shehbaz Gill, the petitioner, claimed that he was a professor working for a US institution who had to travel in order to fulfill his professional obligations.
He further claimed that his family lives in the US and that he wants to go back there with his wife, who is “seriously injured” and needs help.
In addition, the plea assured the court that Gill was still an active PTI member and had “no aspirations of residing in the US permanently.”
The court was informed that the Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA) notification of a flying restriction on former PM advisers Shahbaz Gill and Mirza Shahzad Akbar had earlier been suspended by the Islamabad High Court.
Moreover, Gill said he thought the criminal proceedings that had been filed against him and put his name on the ECL were politically motivated, and he emphasized that “a lot of those cases had been dismissed” by the courts.
Additionally, Gill said that on August 9, 2022, a police report (FIR) was filed against him in Islamabad’s Kohsar police station under several allegations, and on August 10, 2022, his name was once more added to the Provisional National Identification List (PNIL).
The petition claims that the local police have either cleared or exonerated five of the seven suspects. But, Gill has discovered that on October 14, 2022, with the cabinet’s consent, his name was added to the ECL under the excuse that the petitioner was a party to the aforementioned FIR.
After Gill requested the court’s intervention about their “illegal conduct,” the Director General FIA Islamabad, Director General Immigration and Passport Islamabad, Chief Commissioner Islamabad, Director FIA (immigration Lahore), Director FIA Lahore, and others were added as respondents to the lawsuit.
The petitioner had requested that “Directions be provided to appropriate quarters to remove his name off the ECL and the impugned Memorandum be set aside.”
