Pakistan court blocks deportation of 51 Afghan refugee families

Peshawar: A Pakistani court on Monday temporarily blocked the deportation of 51 Afghan refugee families and directed the authorities to establish a new, streamlined process for resolving their citizenship status.

Peshawar High Court Justices Waqar Ahmad and Muhammad Ijaz Khan delivered the judgment, which was earlier reserved on September 2.

The court's judgment was in response to a "confusion" created by government officials who had previously stated that cases of "doubtful citizenship" should be handled by the Ministry of Interior, only to later delegate those powers to the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA).

The judgment, which disposed of dozens of writ petitions filed by 51 Afghan families, comes just a week after a government deadline, set for September 1, for the repatriation of over 1.3 million Afghan refugees holding expired Proof of Registration (PoR) cards.

The court ordered that all petitioners should submit their cases to the NADRA Service Delivery Centre in Peshawar or any other designated centre.

NADRA will then process these applications for a "clearance certificate" under Section 19 of the Pakistan Citizenship Act of 1951.

The judgment specified that once NADRA issues this certificate, it must be transmitted electronically to the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions.

The ministry then has a strict 15-day deadline to electronically communicate any objections back to NADRA.

It ordered that if no objection is raised, NADRA will proceed with the cancellation of the Afghan Citizen Card (ACC) or PoR card and issue a Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) to the applicant.

The court noted that this electronic process is intended to prevent hardship for applicants who would otherwise have to travel to Islamabad.

The court also directed the Ministry of Interior, in collaboration with NADRA, to identify cases where ACC cards were wrongly issued to Pakistani nationals and to share this data with district and police administrations.

This ruling builds on a previous Peshawar High Court judgment from May 2024, which declared that a Pakistani woman married to an Afghan national is entitled to hold dual nationality and receive a CNIC, and that the children born of such a union are entitled to dual nationality until the age of 21.