LAHORE, April 23: Advocate M D Tahir on Saturday moved the Lahore High Court through an application seeking an early hearing of his writ petition which he submitted three years ago with the request that prisoners should be allowed to perform conjugal rights within the jail premises.

The lawyer-petitioner had moved the writ petition on June 18, 2002, requesting that prisoners of all categories, including those convicted or under-trial, should be given opportunity to perform conjugal rights in solitude with regular interval.

He also prayed the court to allow solemnizing of marriages in jails of young prisoners who were already engaged but could not enter into wedlock because of commission of offence and subsequent jail term.

He argued that the NWFP government had already enacted a law allowing conjugal rights to prisoners. Such rights were ordained in Islam, he added.

Mr Tahir submitted that Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry had issued notices to the Punjab government for a reply in June 2002 but the provincial government was yet to offer its comments. He stated that he moved a similar writ petition in 1997 which was disposed of by Justice Faqir Muhammad Khokhar, since elevated to the Supreme Court, with the instructions to the Punjab government to take necessary steps to enact such a law as to facilitate jail inmates to perform conjugal rights.