PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Wednesday received a confidential report from the federal government regarding placing ban on Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) and several of its leaders including its chief Manzoor Ahmad Pashteen.
The additional attorney general, Sanaullah, provided a sealed report to a bench consisting of Justice Sahibzada Asadullah and Justice Dr Khurshid Iqbal. He said that the report included sensitive information and was for the perusal of court.
The bench fixed Jan 21 for next hearing of the matter, pronouncing to adjourn it as hearing over it would take some time.
The bench was hearing a petition jointly filed by Manzoor Pashteen and nine others, requesting the court to declare illegal the ban on PTM under Section 11B of Anti-Terrorism Act and the petitioners under Section 11-EE.
PHC fixes Jan 21 for next hearing of Manzoor Pashteen’s plea
The petitioners have sought court’s orders for federal government to remove PTM from the list of banned outfits in First Schedule of ATA and their names from the ATA’s Fourth Schedule.
They also requested the court to declare that sections 11-B and 11-EE, amended through Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Act, 2014, were in conflict with Article 10-A of the Constitution that guaranteed the right to fair trial and due process of law.
The petitioners have sought orders for Section 11-D of the law, which deals with keeping of an organisation under observation, to be read as a mandatory precursor to proscription under Section 11-B.
Respondents in the petition include federal government through interior secretary, provincial government through its chief secretary, inspector general of police, additional chief secretary (home and tribal affairs), and Peshawar’s chief capital city police officer.
The counsel for petitioners, Attaullah Kundi, said that PTM was a civil and non-violent social movement that had been advocating for the rights of Pakhtuns since its formation in 2014.
He said that unlike violent or militant movements in the region, PTM had drawn inspiration from advocate of non-violence Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and consistently stood against violence.
The counsel said that PTM organised Pashtun National Jirga from Oct 11 to Oct 13, 2024, in Khyber tribal district to provide a platform to Pakhtuns to demand ‘justice and accountability’.
He said that to the utter shock of his clients, federal government issued the impugned notification on Oct 6, 2024, to ban PTM, while the petitioners and several other leaders of the organisation were ‘proscribed’ under Section 11-EE with their names placed in Fourth Schedule of ATA.
He contended that federal government had banned PTM, claiming that federal cabinet had approved it, but it neither made the cabinet’s decision public nor it shared the grounds for ban with his clients.
The lawyer argued that a 2014 amendment to ATA empowered government to ban an organisation on ex parte basis without providing an opportunity of hearing to it, but that provision was unconstitutional and against the principle of natural justice.
Last year the court had sought the minutes of the federal cabinet meeting that decided to ban PTM. That bench had observed that if those minutes were sensitive in nature, the same should be produced in a sealed envelope and that those would not be disclosed to anyone.
The AAG said that they submitted a confidential report in sealed envelope, which was only for the perusal of court.
The petitioners’ counsel stated that from the very beginning, they had been demanding that they should be informed about the grounds for proscription of the organisation, but the government had not been giving them any information in that regard.
Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2026
