On February 21, 2026, the Supreme Court of Pakistan issued a landmark ruling declaring that blocking a citizen's Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) to enforce a money decree is unlawful. The two-judge bench, led by Justice Munib Akhtar, emphasized that a CNIC is not merely a luxury but a fundamental necessity for leading a normal life. Justice Akhtar stated, "Depriving a person of access to their CNIC amounts to curtailing a fundamental necessity of life and cannot be considered a proper exercise of judicial discretion under general execution powers." This ruling overturned a previous decision by the Sindh High Court, which had upheld the blocking of a CNIC as a means of executing a money decree, highlighting the court's caution against a 'muscular' approach to debt recovery that infringes on basic rights (Dawn, Tribune Latest).