The apex court suspends the PHC verdict that allowed an Afghan man both Pakistani citizenship and a Pakistan Origin Card
The Supreme Court on Saturday suspended a Peshawar High Court judgment that had held an Afghan national married to a Pakistani woman eligible for Pakistani citizenship, pending a final decision in the case.
A three-member bench headed by Justice Shahid Waheed took up the federal government’s appeal against the PHC’s decision on December 1, 2023, which had demanded that the Afghan man be issued a Pakistan Origin Card (POC) as well as citizenship.
Additional Attorney General Rana Asadullah informed the court that the government had not opposed the issuance of POCs to such persons. However, he maintained that grant of citizenship in such cases was not permissible under existing law. He added that the PHC judgment had triggered an increase in similar applications. “So far 117 applicants have come forward,” he told the bench.
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Judge Musarrat Hilali noted that the actual number could be much higher. “It is only those who have come forward,” remarked the judge. A lawyer representing the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) submitted that Afghan nationals married to Pakistani women must also have a valid visa to qualify for documentation.
Judge Hilali noted that the court would have to decide whether a person had ‘entered through the door or by scaling the wall’. Asadullah also stated that contempt petitions were filed in light of the PHC verdict, adding urgency to the government’s appeal.
After hearing preliminary arguments, the Supreme Court suspended the PHC judgment and issued notices to the respondents. The matter was adjourned to a later date.
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In 2021, a Pakistani woman, Samina Rohi, had challenged Section 10(2) of the Pakistan Citizenship Act 1951 before the PHC, arguing that the law discriminated against Pakistani women. Under the law, a foreign woman married to a Pakistani man can obtain citizenship, whereas the same right is not extended to foreign husbands of Pakistani women.
She argued that her Afghan husband, who was working in Kuwait, should be granted citizenship on constitutional grounds.
In 2022, the PHC ruled that the Afghan spouse was entitled to a Pakistan Origin Card in light of a 2008 Federal Shariat Court ruling that declared Section 10 of the Citizenship Act “unconstitutional and un-Islamic”. The High Court also ordered the Ministry of the Interior to decide the issue of citizenship in accordance with the law.
In December 2023, the court ordered that the Afghan man be issued both a Pakistan Origin Card and citizenship
