ISLAMABAD, June 15: The Federal Shariat Court was moved on Thursday to declare certain provisions of the controversial Hudood Ordinance as repugnant to Islam. Moved under Article 203-D of the Constitution, Dr M. Aslam Khaki, a jury-consultant and an advocate of the Supreme Court, has specifically challenged nine provisions of the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance 1979 for being against the Islamic spirit.

He requested the Federal Shariat Court to direct the respondents to amend the ordinance and bring it in conformity with the provisions of Islam by way of legal process. The federal government through the Law Ministry, President Pervez Musharraf, the National Assembly through its Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain and a private television channel are respondents in the case.

Provisions which have been challenged are: Sections 2(d), 8 (proof of Zina-bil-jabr liable to Hadd), 10 (Zina or Zina-bil-jabr liable to Tazir), 11 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing women to compel for marriage), 12 (kidnapping or abducting for unnatural lust), 13 (selling a person for prostitution), 14 (buying for purposes of prostitution), 15 (cohabitation caused by a man deceitfully, including a belief of lawful marriage) and 16 (enticing, taking away or detaining a woman with criminal intent).

In his petition, he pleaded that the provisions related to Taazirat (penal code) and not to Hudood, and, therefore, should be expunged from the ordinance.

Any defect or misuse of these provisions (which are man-made and not God-made), he contended, brought a bad name to Islam as objections to Hudood Ordinance were mostly based on those Taazirat which were un-Islamic and not provided in the Holy Quran or Sunnah.

The impugned Taazirat also provides for long imprisonment when the Islamic penal code does not recognize imprisonment as a kind of punishment because in case of imprisonment the family of the prisoner suffers more than the prisoner. The wife of the prisoner gets deprived of her family rights while the children get deprived of their right of maintenance, supervision and education.

Likewise section 10 of the ordinance is also repugnant to Islam, he contended, explaining that Islam provided that if the required number of witnesses was not available for the allegation, then there should be no punishment against the accused at all and he should be exonerated while the complainant should be convicted for Qazf (false allegation).

But practically under this section the accused was punished under Tazir despite the fact that the required number of four male Muslim witnesses was not available.

The ordinance also does not provide protections, concessions and types of doubts to drop the Hadd punishment as provided by the Quran and Sunnah.