LAHORE, Dec 24: Direct police action against those violating the ban on serving more than one dishes at the wedding ceremonies is illegal as the offence is non-cognisable, as per the related ordinance and according to officials concerned.

The food items can only be checked at public places like hotels, marriage halls or parks where weddings are held. And in no case can anyone (police or anybody else) enter a house to check or confiscate food in whatsoever quantity or variety it is being served on a wedding.

This was established during a study of the Marriage Functions (Prohibition of Ostentatious and Wasteful Expenses) Ordinance 2000 under which the Punjab government is allowing only one-dish at wedding parties, and conducting raids on such functions and arresting ‘violators’.

Two SHOs were suspended on Tuesday from service for not enforcing the ban on lavish wedding parties in Lahore. People are also fearful of police action if they offer more than one dishes to their guests at their homes.

The law originally allowed only hot and cold soft drinks at marriage functions which were to be held at clubs, hotels, restaurants, wedding halls, community centres or any other place.

One dish, which means “one salan, with rice and roti and one sweet dish” was allowed through an amendment in the ordinance in 2006. The amended law was named as Marriage Functions (Prohibition of Ostentatious Displays and Wasteful Expenses) (Amendment) Act, 2006.

The original permission of offering meals to guests invited to a marriage held within the house (of the groom or the bride) was not touched in the amended law. The law provides for punishment to both the owners of hotels or other public places and the families of the bride or bridegroom found violating the ban.

But its (Section 7) says that the offences under it are non-cognisable. And no court shall take cognisance of an offence under this law “except on a complaint in writing by an officer or agency as the federal or provincial government may by notification in the official gazette, appoint.”

Now, according to officials, by non-cognisable offence the law means that police cannot raid even any public place to check the variety and quantity of meals.

A government legal officer nevertheless said that the police could check food but only after obtaining a warrant from a judicial magistrate, agreeing that they could not directly proceed against any violator.

A senior official said the law was meant to keep police away from people celebrating marriage even if they violate it, so that neither the function was spoiled nor the participants harassed.

Officials in the home department also conceded that police could not directly take action against anyone violating this law.

They said police had been asked to assist committees already constituted by DCOs to ensure enforcement of this law.

Police were to assist the committees in enforcing the law, and they had not been asked to directly proceed against the violators, said Home Secretary Nadeem Hasan Asif.

Interestingly, the home secretary and other government officials differed on the definition of rice allowed to be served on weddings. The officials said the law did not specify the type of the rice and therefore it could be any.

But, the home secretary said it meant only the plain rice and not biryani or pulao.