ISLAMABAD – The Senate Standing Committee on Inside on Thursday handed a authorities invoice that will enable Nationwide Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) to provisionally impound computerized nationwide id playing cards (CNICs) of suspected people and aliens for as much as two months. The committee handed the Nationwide Database and Registration Authority (Modification) Invoice 2026 after Nadra officers stated that the proposed amendments goal to align the authority’s authorized framework with evolving nationwide safety necessities.
The assertion of objects and causes of the invoice says that the misuse of CNIC “threatens Pakistan’s inner safety, destabilizes the financial system, and undermines the nation’s worldwide standing.”
It says Nadra faces constraints as provisional impounding of CNICs, pending verification studies, is hindered by lack of specific statutory cowl, limiting swift motion. Nadra additionally faces drawback in blocking CNICs of people engaged in prison offences who evade authorized proceedings regardless of being given a chance to be heard by the authority, it reads. Nadra officers informed the panel that the modification was meant to deal with the operational challenges being confronted by the authority because it faces issue in blocking the CNICs of people who’re willfully evading authorized proceedings or legislation enforcement instructions.
They stated that the first objective of those modifications was to forestall absconders and offenders from using a legitimate CNIC to entry important companies together with banking and financial companies whereas evading justice.
The committee was additionally briefed on the mechanism for blocking CNICs of criminals. The Minister of State for Inside Talal Chaudhry stated that the blocking of CNICs was topic to courtroom orders and couldn’t be carried out instantly underneath the prevailing authorized framework.
Members complained that some Afghan nationals allegedly nonetheless possessed Pakistani CNICs, whereas the CNICs of sure Pakistani residents had reportedly been blocked on the grounds of being Afghan nationals.
The chairman directed the related authorities to totally study the matter and resolve the problem on the earliest.
The assembly additionally acquired a briefing on the problem of tinted automobile glasses. Officers knowledgeable the committee that the ban on tinted glasses was imposed attributable to its misuse. The chair really useful introducing a fee-based mechanism for tinted glasses and urged that parliamentarians and diplomats be exempted from the ban.
The lawmakers have been additionally knowledgeable that the arms license coverage was presently underneath overview by the Federal Cupboard, and a choice could be introduced quickly.
