December 7, 2003	Sunday	Shawwal 12, 1424

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PESHAWAR, Dec 6: NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah has summoned the NWFP assembly session to meet here at the assembly hall on Khyber Road at 10am on Friday.

It is expected that the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government will introduce the Hisba Act, which suggests some basic and structural changes in the present administrative and judicial systems, in this session.

The chief of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and MMA general-secretary Maulana Fazlur Rehman has vowed that it (Hisba Act) would be implemented in letter and in spirit.

The main opposition parties — People’s Party Parliamentarians, Pakistan People’s Party (Sherpao), Pakistan Muslim League-Q and Awami National Party are opposed to the Hisba Act, terming it “unacceptable”.

An MMA leader told Dawn that the Nifaz-i-Shariat Council had sent the Hisba Act to the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) to seek expert opinion on the issues contained in the Act. So for, he said, the CII had yet not informed the 21-member Nifaz-i-Shariat Council about the fate of the Act.

The MMA wanted to get endorsed the controversial Act from the CII, which could make recommendations about the mundane laws and interpret them within the Islamic parameters, he added.

PPP parliamentary leader Abdul Akbar Khan said that his party was opposed to some clauses of the Act as it was aimed at changing the basic spirit of the existing administrative laws.

The PPP holds that the Act would bring the province in a perpetual clash with the centre, which could not be endorsed, he added.

Abdul Jalil Jan, a JUI provincial leader, denied that the Act was a replica of the Taliban’s repressive administrative measures which they had enforced in Afghanistan during their short stint.

The Hisba Act was an expansion of the Shariat Act, adopted by the provincial assembly, which was in line with the Constitution of the country, he added.

He said: “The Act ensures that none of its clauses will be repugnant to the Constitution of Pakistan. The CII is the only religious body which interprets the laws and we have referred the issue to it.”

He added that the MMA wanted to get it passed unanimously by all the political groups as it was their collective duty to pass it.

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