Journalist Rana Ayyub moved Delhi High Court on Thursday seeking the lifting of the curbs on foreign travel imposed on her by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

Ayyub’s lawyer Soutik Banerjee raised the matter before the bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla, asking that his client be allowed to travel to attend prior commitments in the UK and Italy and requested an early listing as she has to fly out on Friday.

Banerjee told The Telegraph that the matter had to be brought up a second time on Thursday after the registry pointed out some defects in Ayyub’s application. “I mentioned the matter again at 1.20pm and informed the court that all defects had been cleared by 12.30pm. The Honourable (acting) CJ then directed the matter to be listed for Friday,” he said.

Ayyub had said in a statement on Tuesday, after being prevented from boarding a flight from Mumbai to London: “On the 1st of April, on the invitation of Katharine Viner, the editor in chief of the Guardian, I was to give a speech at their office. On the 6th and 7th I was to be in Italy.” She has been summoned for questioning by the ED at its Mumbai office.

Over Rs. 1.77 crore of donations collected by Ayyub for Covid-19 relief have been frozen pending a probe into alleged money laundering through her charitable work during the pandemic.

The ED probe is based on an FIR registered by Uttar Pradesh police on the complaint of an activist of the Ghaziabad-based NGO Hindu IT Cell. Ayyub had contested the allegations with accounts of her expenditure from funds collected through the widely recognised Ketto platform, all of which were from donors in India.

A columnist for The Washington Post, Ayyub is a trenchant critic of the Narendra Modi government.

Rights defenders, journalists and NGOs from several parts of the world have accused the Indian establishment of “abuse” of power and a “harassment campaign” after Ayyub was stopped from travelling.

The Paris-based media rights watchdog Reporters sans frontières (RSF) tweeted on Tuesday: “RSF is concerned by the travel restrictions placed on @RanaAyyub when attempting to leave India to speak at international events in London and Perugia — the latest example of growing pressure against her. #WeStandWithRana and call for an immediate lifting of these restrictions.”

Ayyub is scheduled to deliver a lecture titled “When the State attacks: Journalism under fire in the world’s biggest democracy”, at the International Journalism Festival in Italy’s Perugia on April 6.

Media freedom NGO International Press Institute had tweeted on Wednesday: “IPI joins the wave of solidarity with @RanaAyyub…. We urge #India to #LetRanaFly to Europe where she is scheduled to speak on online harassment at several intl events.”

The Mumbai Press Club had tweeted: “We unequivocally condemn the ham-handed way in which Rana Ayyub was prevented from flying to London to speak on the intimidation of journalists in India by a last-minute summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate. This amounts to harassment of journalists.”

Ayyub has found support from renowned academics too.

Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley tweeted: “India’s increasingly fascist government is clamping down on its journalist critics, using their legal system. @RanaAyyub is one of India’s most important voices.”

Sao Paulo-based German-Brazilian foreign affairs expert Oliver Stuenkel wrote on Twitter: “Intimidation of journalists in India increased so much that the government tried to intimidate a journalist at the airport who was going to give a lecture in Italy on the intimidation of journalists.”