Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) refused on Monday to entertain a petition filed by the Lal Masjid cleric calling for the imposition of Sharia law in the country.

Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar heard the appeal in his chambers. The Supreme Court Registrar Office had returned Maulana Abdul Aziz’s plea as non-maintainable in February 2016 while raising several objections.

During the in-chambers hearing, Justice Nisar heard the appeal against registrar office’s objections. He concluded by rejecting Aziz’s petition, thereby sustaining the objections raised by the registrar office.

In December 2015, Aziz had approached the top court through a constitutional petition under Article 184(3) by his counsel Tariq Asad. Through his petition, the cleric contended that the only solution to eliminate all evils and challenges in the realms of national security, societal cohesion, national economy, war of terrorism and political instability was to enforce Sharia law in the country.

The petition had made president, federal government, speaker National Assembly, secretaries of law, justice and parliamentary affairs, governors of all four provinces and Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) as respondents.

The petition stated that Pakistan was founded on ideological basis rather than territorial grounds. “Islamic and moral values enshrined in the Objectives Resolution represent the aspiration of the nation and offer moral and historical intuitions for understanding the constitution,” the applicant said.

Aziz had alleged that the country was being ‘Indianised’ and ‘westernised’ through the electronic media. “The younger generation has been inspired into adopting modelling and acting, singing and dancing as careers,” he stated. “All these evils are developing due to the negligence of the federal government and its institutions defying the provisions of the constitution,” the petitioner had concluded.

Published in Daily Times, March 6^th 2018.