August 8, 2026
By Hashir Ahsan
ISLAMABAD
Arshad Khan, who is informally known as ‘Chai Wala‘, has approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC) over the non-renewal of his passport.
This comes after his ID card had also been blocked last year over suspicions that he was an Afghan national, however later NADRA confirmed him as a Pakistani citizen and restored his ID card.
Khan filed a constitutional writ petition under Article 199 of the Constitution against the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports and the Ministry of Interior, arguing that the administration’s unjustified withholding of his passport was a serious violation of his basic constitutional rights and it is also badly hurting his growing international business and personal reputation.
Khan who is a resident of Rawalpindi and son of Baz Muhammad, filed the petition through his lawyers, led by Umer Ijaz Gilani.
In the petition Khan describes himself as a “hardworking Pakistani who has become internationally recognized as a businessman.”
He says that through his brand “Cafe Chai Wala Arshad Khan,” he has introduced traditional Pakistani tea and culture abroad, especially in Gulf countries — a business that brings valuable monthly foreign exchange to Pakistan and boosts the country’s positive image globally.
The petition explains that he previously went through serious administrative and mental harassment when NADRA blocked his national ID card based on an unknown, baseless, and malicious allegation. Because of this block on his ID, he was effectively left without citizenship rights in his own country.
Deeply affected by this, he had filed a constitutional writ petition before the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench. During those proceedings, NADRA formed a high-level verification board, which, after detailed investigation, confirmed his Pakistani citizenship as valid, lifted the block on his ID card, and cleared him completely. As a result, the LHC’s Rawalpindi bench disposed of that petition through its final order on October 20, 2025. Since then, his national ID card has been fully restored, valid, and active, and his name appears correctly in all NADRA records as a Pakistani citizen.
According to the petition, even before the NADRA related legal process had concluded, Arshad Khan had already applied on August 23, 2025, to the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports in Islamabad to renew his old, expired passport. At that time, passport officials issued him a computerized token and assured him that a new passport would be issued once the necessary legal and administrative process was complete.
However, nearly a year has now passed, and the passport authorities keep neglecting the matter. Khan says he personally visited the passport office multiple times, met with senior officials, and asked for progress on his pending application, but received no satisfactory response, and his passport still hasn’t been issued.
After all his personal efforts failed, he was forced to send a legal notice through his lawyer demanding immediate renewal of his passport — but the passport authorities ignored that too and stayed silent.
On the question of jurisdiction, the petition argues that since the headquarters of both the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports and the Ministry of Interior are located in Islamabad, and since the passport renewal token was also obtained from the Islamabad office, the Islamabad High Court has full and lawful jurisdiction to hear this matter and issue orders.
Khan’s position is that since the core dispute over his citizenship has already been fully resolved through NADRA’s verification committee and the High Court’s decision, and his ID card has been restored, withholding a linked and essential official document like his passport is completely unconstitutional, arbitrary, and done in bad faith.
Because of the lack of a passport, Khan says his international travel has been blocked, which directly violates his fundamental right to “freedom of movement and travel” under Article 15 of the Constitution.
The Constitution grants every citizen the right to travel freely within and outside the country, and a passport is the essential document through which a citizen exercises the right to travel abroad. He argues that the passport authorities’ failure to decide his application for over a year, while making him run around repeatedly and keeping it pending, violates Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees the protection of every person’s dignity.
Arshad Khan states in the petition that since he holds a valid national ID card, a NADRA clearance report, and a ruling from the superior judiciary, he has a legitimate legal expectation that the administration will treat him fairly and issue his passport without further delay.