PESHAWAR, Dec 13: While it has been exactly a month since the NWFP assembly passed a watered-down version of the controversial Hasba bill, the provincial governor still has a week to decide whether or not to sign the bill into law.

Sources said the Hasba bill, which seeks to establish what critics describe as a Taliban-style department under a powerful cleric entrusted with the task of enforcing Islamic morality, was sent to NWFP Governor Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai on Nov 20.

Under Article 116 of the 1973 constitution, a bill is presented to the governor for assent when it has been passed by a provincial assembly. The bill either receives the gubernatorial assent within 30 days or, if it is not a money bill, is returned to the provincial assembly for reconsideration.

Mr Aurakzai, one-time Peshawar corps commander, told newsmen two days after the passage of the Hasba bill from the NWFP assembly that he would examine whether directives issued by the Supreme Court in relation to the Hasba bill had been followed or not.The Hasba bill is a revised version of one that was ruled unconstitutional in 2005 by the Supreme Court, following a challenge by President Pervez Musharraf under Article 186 of the 1973 constitution. Mr Aurakzai’s predecessors, Iftikhar Hussain Shah and Khalil-ur-Rahman, refused to sign the bill into law.

Undeterred, NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani asserted on Wednesday that a committee had been tasked to formulate recommendations for the implementation of the bill. He explained that the committee would be headed by NWFP Education Minister Maulana Fazl Ali Haqqani.

“The province will have an ombudsman within a week,” said Mr Durrani. The Hasba bill provides for the appointment of an anti-vice ombudsman enjoying sweeping powers to protect Islamic values and “forbid persons, agencies and authorities working under the administrative control of government to act against Shariah”.

Mr Durrani insisted that the Hasba bill was a law even if the governor did not assent to it.