ISLAMABAD, June 27: The Supreme Court on Tuesday held that legislators have no right to run a parallel judiciary through ‘punchayat’ (village council) for contracting marriages of minor girls as compensation under unIslamic custom of Vani and Sawara.

“Civil society will collapse if parallel judiciary is encouraged by legislators and influential,” a three-member bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and Justice Saiyed Ashhad.

The court was jointly hearing different complaints and a petition of a freelance anthropologist Samar Minallah against the custom of Sawara (dispute settlement in which, instead of blood money, young girls of offenders’ family is given in marriage to victim’s family as a compensation for the crime committed by male members of the family).

The complaint regarding handing over of five minor girls to victim’s family as compensation over a murder in Jacobabad by a jirga presided over by PPP MNA Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani was also fixed for hearing.

Thull tehsil nazim Akbar Banglani and Peer Bharchoondi Mian Abdul Khalique had also attended the jirga to end a decade old feud between two rival groups by offering five minors as compensation and slapping Rs1 million fine on both warring parties.

Kashmore DPO Shahab Mazhar was also directed to produce minor girls before the court on Wednesday.

Mir Bijarani, who was also present, told the court that he had no knowledge about the girls though he presided over the jirga on the intention to bring the two families together.

The feud began in 1997 when Miandad Banglani was murdered in a shootout between Hafiz Qamaruddin and Ali Yar Banglani groups over Karo-kari (honour killing) charges in village Kamal Magsi, Thull Tehsil of the Jacobabad district.

It was raised during the jirga to restore old friendship between the groups through matrimonial relationship but the issue was left to them and therefore he had no information about the girls.

However, the chief justice asked him to explain as to who vested him the right to hold jirga in violation of the laws. “You can not dictate judgments by imposing conditions. So much for the soft image of the country,” the chief justice deplored.

Sindh Advocate-General Anwar Mansoor Khan told the court that the chief minister had also taken notice of the incident and an FIR had been lodged.

Regarding a nine-year-old Aziza of Layyah district who was forcibly married with Bilal (25) as compensation on the direction of a ‘punchayat’ in violation of the Child Marriage Restraint Act-1929, the court directed the Layyah DPO to proceed with the matter. The DPO was also directed not to harass her family members.

The sessions judge concerned was also directed to probe the matter and submit a report before the court.