ISLAMABAD, Jan 22: The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned the hearing of a reference by President Gen Pervez Musharraf against the Hasba Bill, 2006, on a request of the NWFP, which had adopted the law to enforce religious practices in the province

NWFP Additional Advocate-General M. A. Qayyum Mazhar requested a nine-member bench of the court to delay the proceedings for a month because the government had not yet engaged a counsel to defend its action in the court.

Since Attorney-General Makhdoom Ali Khan did not oppose the request, the apex court decided to reconstitute the larger bench again on Feb 19 and adjourn the proceedings.

On Nov 13, 2006, the provincial assembly had rushed through a revised version of the Hasba Bill for enforcing their own version of Islamic morality through anti-vice ombudsman enjoying sweeping powers to protect Islamic values and forbid persons, agencies and authorities working under the administrative control of the government to act against Shariah.

However, the apex court stayed the bill from becoming a provincial law on Dec 15 last year when the federal government moved the court by filling the reference.

A five-member larger bench which had taken up the reference on the next date of its filing had also summoned the provincial government through its chief secretary, speaker of the NWFP Assembly and the advocate-general of the province for the third week of January. The provincial government had also been barred from enacting the new Hasba Bill into an act of the provincial assembly.

This is for the second time that the federal government has approached the apex court under its advisory jurisdiction to seek its opinion on the legality of the controversial bill.

On Aug 4, 2005, a nine-member bench of the Supreme Court had blocked the first version of the Hasba Bill on the first presidential reference by declaring several of its clauses relating to powers of the ombudsman contrary to the Constitution and had advised the NWFP governor not to give his assent to the law.

The second reference was filed in the apex court by the federal government with a request to take up the matter at the earliest when NWFP Governor Ali Jan Aurakzai informed the prime minister through a letter dated Dec 12, the date of approving the bill, that in his opinion the bill was against the Constitution and that he was still bound by the command of the apex court not to sign it.

While seeking an injunction on the new bill, Attorney-General Makhdoom Ali Khan had pleaded before the apex court that the Hasba Bill,2006, was unconstitutional for the same reasons as those given by the apex court in its earlier opinion regarding the Hasba Bill, 2005.