SHC grants Faryal Talpur permission to travel to UK

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday allowed Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) MPA Faryal Talpur, who is also the sister of PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari, to travel aboard on a one-off basis for one month.

Faryal, who has been facing a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) reference pertaining to fake accounts before an accountability court in Islamabad, had submitted that she was facing a corruption inquiry and investigation for last couple of years.

The petitioner’s counsel, Abid S Zuberi, submitted that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had first initiated an inquiry with regard to fake accounts and later that inquiry was transferred to NAB. He said that the petitioner's name had been on the Exit Control List (ECL) on the FIA’s recommendation since December 27, 2018.

The lawyer informed the high court that the petitioner wanted to travel abroad to meet her ailing daughter. He requested the SHC to grant one-time permission to the petitioner to look after her ailing daughter for four weeks in the United Kingdom (UK).

A NAB special prosecutor submitted that he had no objection to the petitioner’s travelling abroad for one time subject to furnish of surety. A deputy attorney general, however, opposed the application submitting that he had apprehension that if the petitioner was allowed to travel abroad, she would abscond and avoid the trial.

A division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha, after hearing the arguments, observed that the name of the petitioner had been placed on the ECL on the FIA’s recommendation, not by the court.

The bench observed that many other persons involved in serious NAB references, including former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and others accused of causing multi-billion-rupee losses to the national exchequer, had been granted one-off permission to travel abroad, whereas the potential loss caused by the petitioner to the exchequer as per the NAB reference was Rs30 million.

Granting the application, the high court allowed Faryal to travel abroad on a one-off basis from November 29 till December 28 subject to furnishing a solvent surety in sum of Rs25 million. The SHC also directed a federal law officer and NAB prosecutor to come prepared on the next hearing to argue the case with regard to the removal of the petitioner’s name from the ECL.