LAHORE, Dec 3: A Lahore High Court division bench is scheduled to take up on Monday the intra-court appeal through which Sajjad Ahmad Rana, the father of 12-year Scottish Muslim girl Misbah Iram, has pleaded with the LHC to decide the matter of his daughter according to the Islamic jurisprudence (Shariah).

Meanwhile, the LHC registrar office has returned a civil miscellaneous application which Mr Rana filed along with the ICA on Saturday with a request to the court that the order of the LHC single bench to the effect that the custody of Misbah, whose Christian name is Molly Campbell, should be handed over to the

British High Commission in Pakistan, be altered to extend the period from one week to 30 days.

A single bench of the LHC had ordered Mr Rana on Nov 29 that the girl should return to her mother Louise Anne Fairley. The court directed Mr Rana to hand over the custody of the girl to a woman diplomat of the British High Commission in seven days along with her Pakistani and British Passport so that the high commission was able to make arrangements for her travel to the UK.

The registrar office returned the petition to the counsel of the appellant, Dr Abdul Basit, with the objection that the rules did not provide for an interim relief in a matter which had already stood decided by a court.

The ICA challenged the single bench order on the ground that the court had not taken into consideration the Shariah law which provided for giving due weight to the opinion of a girl who had attained puberty. —Correspondent