Ruet-e-Hilal Committee: Ministry asked to prepare draft law for constitutional cover

Senate Standing Committee on Religious Affairs and Inter-Faith Harmony on Tuesday asked the Ministry of Religious Affairs to prepare a draft law to give legal and constitutional cover to central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee legalising its functioning and resolving conflicts of crescent sighting.
Sardar Muhammad Yousuf Federal Minister for Religious Affairs informed the meeting that the nine-member central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee was set up in 1974 under a resolution passed by the National Assembly. Now the committee comprises 26 members but so far it has not been provided any constitutional and legal cover, he added.
He said that Ministry of Religious Affairs is working on a draft law to provide legal cover to Ruet-e-Hilal Committee and the Ministry would soon give it a final shape. Senator Hafiz Hamdullah while presiding over the meeting said that the main reason of conflicts over crescent sighting was the lack of legal and constitutional status of Ruet-e-Hilal Committee. He said that the Ministry needs to submit the proposed draft to the committee before the next meeting to hold deliberation over it and then submitting in the Upper House for final approval.
The committee also recommended setting up of a committee to consult all provinces regarding provision of legal cover to Ruet-e-Hilal Committee. The Federal Minister for Religious affairs will head the committee and chairman of standing committees of Senate and National Assembly. Leader of the House Raja Zafar-ul-Haq and Secretary Ministry of Religious Affairs will be the members of the committee.
Hamdullah said that the committee would hold consultation with the chief ministers of four provinces to pass separate resolution for providing legal and constitutional cover to Ruet-e-Hilal Committee otherwise the domain of Ruet-e-Hilal Committee would remain limited to only federal government.
The committee also expressed concern over lack of proper criteria of the selection of members of Ruet-e-Hilal Committee and issued directives to Ministry of Religious Affairs to devise transparent and proper selection criteria for selection of members of the committee.
Referring to 26 members Ruet-e-Hilal committee, Hamdullah said that the committee should not be named as Ruet-e-Hilal committee but it should be named as a "Lashkar-e-Hilal'. Upon seeing the name of Qandeel Baloch fame cleric Mufti Abdul Qavi among the members of Ruet-e-Hilal, Hamdullah said that inclusion of people like Qavi in the committee defames other respected Ulema. "A cleric who is not even hesitant to pose for a picture with Qandeel Baloch can become a member of Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, than why not Qandeel Baloch", he said.
The committee appreciated the abolishment of parliamentarians' quota in government Hajj scheme and directed the Ministry of Religious Affairs to highlight the quota abolishing decision in a more effective way. Yousaf informed the committee that the parliamentarians' quota in government Hajj scheme was abolished by the Federal Cabinet in 2009. He said this year 2,80,000 people applied under government Scheme Hajj against the quota of only 70,000. As many as 210,000 people failed to win berth in government scheme. It is impossible to adjust such a huge number of people in any quota, he added.
"Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has decreased hardship cases Hajj quota from five per cent to three percent in Hajj policy 2016 to accommodat maximum pilgrims in the balloting", he said, adding that main objective of hardship quota was to accommodate broken families, labours and low income people.