SC to re-hear plea against meal serving at marriages -DAWN


11 September 2004	Saturday	25 Rajab 1425

SC to re-hear plea against meal serving at marriages
By Nasir Iqbal

ISLAMABAD, Sept 10: The Supreme Court will re-hear on Monday a constitutional petition to revise its earlier judgment of lifting ban on wedding meals and wasteful expenses on matrimonial functions.

A three-member Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar will re-hear the case in which Attorney-General of Pakistan, Advocates-General of Punjab, Sindh and the NWFP would also appear.

Since the former chief justice Sheikh Riaz Ahmed could not sign the detailed judgment, the case will be reheard on technical grounds. Now the entire proceedings would be re- adjudicated by a new bench of the Supreme Court.

A consortium of leading caterers, restaurant owners and poultry farmers had challenged the ban on serving food and claim that the ban was against injunctions of Islam.

The respondents on the other hand had argued that the ban was needed to contain wasteful expenses and to help easy and simple marriages for middle class and poor families who badly feel the pinch of such extravagance.

The Supreme Court on Nov 8, 2002, had allowed serving of meals at valima and other marriage functions when the ban to this effect was challenged before it. The court had declared as null and void the promulgation of Marriage (Prohibition of Wasteful Expenses) Ordinance 1997, introduced by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as an austerity measure and described it as ultra vires to the Constitution.

The top court had also ruled that such a legislation was a provincial subject falling in the concurrent list and therefore the federal government had no power to enact a law, banning the serving of food at valima receptions and allied functions of a marriage.

The court had also held that the provinces would be at liberty to promulgate any such law, fixing the number of guests and showing of dowry. Soon after the judgment, the Punjab government allowed one dish at valima receptions with the restriction of number of guests, while in the other three provinces marriage functions have become a wasteful practice due to non-legislation.