LAHORE: As the deadline set by the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) for converting the Madrassa Registration Bill into law expired on Sunday, Pakistan Ulema Council chairman Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi has criticised Maulana Fazl-ur-Reman’s party for demanding a change in the process for seminaries’ registration.

The JUI-F chief had set Dec 8 as the deadline for completing legislation process on seminaries’ registration with the demand that the earlier procedure adopted in 2019, when the PTI was in power, for registration of religious schools with education ministry should be amended and the these institutions should now be affiliated with the industries ministry.

“It’s very strange that you demand affiliation of madaris with the ministry of industries, instead of the ministry of education, while 18,000 out of 25,000 madaris of 10 boards have already been registered under the prevailing mechanism,” Ashrafi said in a statement on Sunday.

“A lot of time and energy had been spent on reaching the 2019 agreement and now you are calling for changing the mechanism. Signing an agreement and then changing it on a daily basis will make the system a game of children,” he added.

Arguing that being educational institutions, the seminaries should be affiliated with the education ministry, he appealed that the issue must not be politicised for the sake of the future of hundreds of thousands of students of these institutions.

The Madrassa Registration Bill, passed on the eve of the passage of the 26th constitutional amendment last month, has been sent to President Asif Ali Zardari, who represents the PPP in the coalition government, for his assent to make it into a law.

But the president raised objections to it, saying as education is a provincial subject, the federal government cannot enact any law for it.

The JUI-F sees it as a ploy to delay the enactment of the law and threatened to march on Islamabad if the issue is not resolved by Dec 8.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif approached Maulana Fazl the other day, conveying him the message that the PML-N government had played its part for the legislation proposed in return for the JUI-F’s support for the 26th amendment and that it’s the PPP now creating hurdles in the way of the bill.

The JUI-F also believes that President Zardari should have raised this issue when the proposed bill was being deliberated upon before the passage of the 26th amendment.

However, it says that the PML-N government can overcome the presidential hurdle and notify the law by taking advantage of the fact that the president had returned the bill with the objection after the passage of 10 days mandatory for the purpose.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2024