Police officers walk past the Supreme Court of Pakistan building in Islamabad, Pakistan April 6, 2022. REUTERS
ISLAMABAD:
The Supreme Court has declared that freezing a citizen’s Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) to enforce a money decree is illegal, holding that such action exceeds the powers given to executing courts under the Civil Procedure Code (CPC).
The decision was announced by a two-judge bench comprising Justice Munib Akhtar and Justice Irfan Saadat Khan in a civil petition for leave to appeal. Justice Akhtar authored the detailed order.
The suit arose out of an execution proceeding instituted after a money decree was passed in a summary suit in favor of the respondent Idrees Ahmed against the petitioner Agha Abid Majeed Khan.
During the execution process, the trial court ordered blocking of the petitioner’s CNIC till he furnished security for the decree amount. The Sindh High Court (SHC) later upheld this order, noting that blocking the CNIC was a step towards enforcing legal court orders, noting that the decree had remained unexecuted since March 2016.
The petitioner challenged the SHC’s decision, arguing that no provision of law empowered an executing court to block a CNIC as part of the enforcement of the decree. The petitioner’s lawyer, Ahmer Bilal Soofi, argued that such an order was beyond the jurisdiction of the executing court.
During the hearing, both the Additional Advocate General of Sindh and the Additional Attorney General supported the petitioner’s stand and argued that the SHC’s order was not legally sustainable. The court appreciated the assistance provided by the lawyers.
In its ruling, the SC examined Section 51 of the CPC, which outlines the permissible modes of execution of a decree. It noted that while clauses (a) through (d) specify particular methods of enforcement, clause (e) permits enforcement “in such other manner as the nature of the relief granted may require.”
However, the court considered that this general provision cannot be interpreted so broadly as to allow measures that lose coherence with the legal framework. Justice Akhtar observed that the decree in question was a simple money decree and did not justify blocking the judgment debtor’s CNIC.
The court cautioned that while a robust approach is necessary to ensure the implementation of decrees, it must not become so excessive as to deprive a citizen of essential aspects of daily life.
The judgment emphasized that a CNIC is not just a statutory formality or luxury, but has become indispensable to conduct ordinary affairs of modern society.
Depriving a person of access to their CNIC, the SC held, is tantamount to curtailing a basic necessity of life and cannot be considered a proper exercise of judicial discretion under ordinary enforcement powers.
The bench also took note of a 2018 amendment by the Peshawar High Court (PHC) to the CPC in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) that introduced Rule 117 of Order XXI, which expressly allows blocking of a CNIC as a means of compelling attendance or completing enforcement proceedings.
However, the SC clarified that this provision applies only within KP and has no application in Sindh. The court further noted that the very inclusion of an express provision in the KP indicates that in the absence of such specific authorization, such power cannot be implied under general performance clauses.
After reserving its opinion on the constitutional or legal validity of the KP amendment to an appropriate case, the SC concluded that the SHC had erred in upholding the order of the executing court. The court converted the application for leave to appeal and allowed it, thereby setting aside the impugned order.
