PHC allows PAIMAN Alumni Trust to continue projects

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Wednesday allowed PAIMAN Alumni Trust, a foreign funded non-governmental organisation, to continue projects in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which had been stopped by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Home and Tribal Affairs Department for security concerns.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Ikramullah Khan and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim suspended the notification and allowed the trust to continue projects till the next order of the court.

The court also sought reply from the provincial government and secretary Home and Tribal Affairs Department in the case.

The bench passed the order in a writ petition filed by the trust against the ban on its activities and development works.

The Home and Tribal Affairs Department had issued a notification on April 18, last year. All the deputy commissioners of the province were informed that the activities of PAIMAN Alumni Trust NGO had been banned in KP. They were directed to comply with the order forthwith.

During the course of hearing, Aminur Rehman Yousafzai, counsel for the trust, submitted before the bench that the organization was launched by citizens of Pakistan in 2004.

The objectives were to consolidate efforts for building human capabilities through programmes and projects in the social sector.

The projects and programme centered around protecting fundamental human rights, empowering women politically, economically and socially, promoting formal and non-formal education and empowering youth women and communities to build social cohesion, interfaith harmony through addressing issues of extremism.

In order to comply with the new procedural requirement, he submitted that the petitioner had earlier got 42 times Non-Objection Certificates for the projects in the period between 2010 and 2015 for both the Fata and KP province.

The lawyer submitted about 83 ongoing projects of the trust were at the threshold of completion, which have been put to a halt by the Home Department through the impugned notification. The counsel argued that the department had no lawful authority to ban activities of the trust without mentioning reasons. It said that the department had not communicated the action to the petitioner’s trust through any means.

He argued the trust, employees of 15 offices and welfare of 250 families was being adversely affected by the decision.

The lawyer submitted the petitioner made repeated requests to the respondents to simply explain the reasons for the ban but no reply was received.