Federal Shariat Court (FSC) on Tuesday reserved its verdict on petitions challenging Women Protection Law adopted by the Parliament in 2006. A three-member bench of FSC comprising Chief Justice Agha Raifq Ahmad, Justice Afzal Haider and Justice Shahzado Sheikh heard the petition challenging Women Protection Law on the grounds that no law repugnant to Quran and Suhhah can be adopted.
Four identical petitions challenging the Law were filed before the FSC between 2007 and 2010. The petitioners argued that the Law in question was against the constitution, which states that "Islam will be the state religion" and no laws will be passed which are repugnant to the Quran and the Sunnah.
The petitioner Muhammad Akhtar, Abdul Latif Sufi and Mian Abdul Razzaq have filed petition against Women Protection Act 2006. Their stance was that clauses removed from Hadood Ordinance should be inserted again so that people in an Islamic State may live their lives in accordance with the Islamic laws and principals.
Clause 365(B) talks about kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel for marriage, 367-A mentions that kidnapping or abducting in order to subject person to unnatural lust, 371-A says selling and buying a person for purposes of prostitution, 493-A describes that cohabitation caused by a man deceitfully inducing a belief of lawful marriage and 496-A says enticing or taking away or detaining a woman with criminal intent.
The previous government of General Pervez Musharraf had termed the legislation of Women's Protection Act as 'historic' and claimed that it was not against Islam. The said act had omitted few clauses of the Hudood Ordinance about Zina, Zina bil-jabr and Qazf. The ordinance has been subjected to harsh criticism by the US, UK, European Union, Pakistan's civil society, human rights activists and women's rights organisations. Following the passage of the act, the punishment of whipping had been removed from the ordinance. However, the sentence of stoning to death remains part of the law. The court after hearing the case reserved its judgement.
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