Mumbai terror attack masterminnd Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-Ud-Dawa and Falah-i-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF) are no longer on the list of banned outfits, Dawn reported.
This comes after the presidential ordinance that proscribed them as banned terror outfits under a UN resolution lapsed.
Pakistan's former president Mamnoon Hussain had, in February this year, promulgated an ordinance amending the country's Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 to declare JuD and FIF as banned outfits.
During the hearing on Thursday, 25 October, of a petition filed by Saeed, his counsel informed the Islamabad High Court that Imrran Khan-led PTI government in Pakistan did not extend the ordinance or table it in parliament to convert it into an act.
According to Dawn, Pakistan's Deputy Attorney General Raja Khalid Mehmood Khan confirmed that the ordinance has lapsed.
Justice Aamer Farooq disposed of the petition and held that the petition became infructuous since the ordinance challenged by the petitioner (Hafiz Saeed) has lapsed.
Terming it against the sovereignty of Pakistan that an ordinance was issued to ban his organisation, the JuD chief said that any law which was violative of constitutional provisions was liable to be struck down, Dawn reported.
According to a list updated on September 5 on the National Counter Terrorism Authority’s website, 66 organisations have been banned in Pakistan and JuD and FIF are not among them.
India has been pushing Pakistan to bring to justice the perpetrators of the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai in which 166 people were killed.
(With inputs from Dawn.)
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