Imposition of compensatory costs

Grievance of petitioner was that his name had been placed on Exit Control List without any justification and he had been offloaded at the time when he was going to perform Hajj

Validity

Name of petitioner was placed on Exit Control List by Ministry of Interior in arbitrary and mechanical manner only on the instruction of NAB, without applying its own mind, without passing any speaking order and without disclosing basis of its intention of exercising powers under S.2(3) of Exit from Pakistan (Control) Ordinance, 1981

Such act on the part of government, which was not done fairly, reasonably or in good faith had violated not only valuable fundamental rights of petitioner guaranteed under Arts. 4, 9 & 15 of the Constitution but also prohibited petitioner from performing Hajj, which was one of the five fundamental religious obligations in Islam

High Court declared actions on the part of authorities in placing name of petitioner on Exit Control List, prohibiting him from travelling abroad and offloading him from Hajj flight, as arbitrary, void ab initio and without jurisdiction

High Court imposed cost of Rs.100,000/- on government which was to be recovered from delinquent officer(s) out of his/their personal account and not from national exchequer and to be paid to petitioner as compensatory cost within 30 days

High Court directed the authorities to remove name of petitioner from Exit Control List

Petition was allowed accordingly.