Islamabad: Pakistan’s foreign ministry has stated to the Supreme Court (SC) that equipment for machine-readable passports will be installed and individual control will be placed by November 2015 at all embassies and missions across the world. The court in the reply was told that all the embassies as well as missions would be delivered with the machines that can read passports.
These machines would be installed in 16 missions from July 2014-2015, as well as in 48 embassies, the machines would be installed during the next year. The report was submitted in the three member bench under the management of Chief Justice Tasadduq Hussain Jeelani by the Deputy Attorney General on Thursday.
It is brought into the knowledge that[junkie-alert style=”white”]CJ had fixed the case on February 17 and directed attorney general for Pakistan, Secretary Ministry of Foreign Affairs and DG Passport to appear before the court. [/junkie-alert]
“If this is the condition of our passport office, I am shocked,” Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani commented while heading a three-member bench of the apex court hearing a suo moto case relating to non-availability of Machine Readable Passports in the Pakistan Embassy in China.
Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani the other day took suo moto notice on the application sent by an overseas Pakistani, Muhammad Azam Khawaja, resident of Nanjing, China, registered through the expatriate wing of Human Rights Cell of Supreme Court. The applicant stated that about 7,500 overseas Pakistanis in China were facing hardships because of non-availability of Machine Readable Passports in Pakistan Embassy, China.
