AN appalling abuse of power was reversed at the Islamabad High Court on Wednesday. The proceedings pertained to Nadra’s action in October 2019 of cancelling JUI-F leader Maulana Hamdullah’s CNIC — in effect, revoking his citizenship — on the grounds that he was an ‘alien’ and had obtained his identity papers through fraudulent means. In a 29-page judgement, Chief Justice Athar Minallah wrote: “Citizenship is the most valuable basic right of a human. All other rights, whether social or political, cannot be enjoyed if a person does not have a bond of citizenship with a state.” The court ordered Nadra — that it said had acted in an “arbitrary and reckless manner” — to restore the CNIC of the former senator as well as those of other petitioners who had been subjected to the same on similar grounds. It held that the authority did not have the jurisdiction to initiate such proceedings on the basis of intelligence reports.