PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Wednesday suspended an order of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa home secretary to ban the activities of a non-governmental organisation and allowed the Palman Alumni Trust to continue working in the province until further orders.

Justice Ikramullah Khan and Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim directed the home secretary to file comments before Aug 17, the next date of hearing of a writ petition filed by the organisation against the order of the secretary.

Ameenur Rehman Yousafzai, lawyer for the petitioner, said his client was a registered trust functioning in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and other parts ofthe country.

He said the NGO had been functioning strictly in accordance withthe law and from time to time, it had been given no objection certificates by the relevant federal and provincial authorities.

The lawyer said the organisation had launched around 85 projects in different parts of the country mostly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

He said as the security situation in the country had severely deteriorated, it had become necessary for NGOs to procure NOC from the relevant state authorities to continue work.

The lawyer said in compliance with the new procedural requirement the petitioner time and again applied for the issuance of NOC from state authorities for its various projects.

He added that from 2010 to 2015 the state authorities had issued NOCs to the petitioner for 42 times.

He said last year, the petitioner was informed through its local offices that Paiman had been banned by the provincial government to operate in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Mr Yousafzai added that through a letter issued by KP Home Department on Apr 18, 2016 to all the deputy commissioners in the province, which was neither shared with the petitioner nor addressed toit, the government had ordered the han on activities of Paiman Alumni Trust in all districts and directed that its offices should be closed down.

He said within few days of the issuance of that letter, several offices of the organisation having around 550 employees were closed down.

The lawyer said the petitioner was aggrieved with the order of home secretary and had requested him to provide an opportunity of hearing so as to know the reason for such an extreme step taken by the government, but no opportunity was provided to it.

He said the home department had no lawful authority to arbitrarily banned activities of the NGO without giving it a show cause notice or opportunity of hearing.

Mr Yousafzai said on one hand, the government was not in a position to create employment opportunities for the people but on the other, it had snatched employment form around 550 people, which would adversely affect thousands of people depending on them.

He requested the bench to declare the impugned decision illegal and unconstitutional, and allow work on the ongoing projects in line with the law.