PESHAWAR, June 2: The Nifaz-i-Sharia Council(NSC), a body tasked to advise the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government on the enforcement of Sharia in the NWFP, has failed to hold its meetings since last year.

Members of the council, an advisery body formed immediately after the MMA came to power in 2002, have lost interest and become non-functional after the MMA government failed to implement their recommendations for the enforcement of Sharia and setting up of a Hasba institution “to prevent vice and promote virtue”.

The council, comprising religious scholars, legal experts and advisers, only exists in paper. “Members are ‘disappointed’ at the MMA government’s inability to enforce Sharia in the province,” said an official of the council.

Mufti Ghulam-ur-Rehman, chairman of the 21-member Nifaz-i-Sharia Council, expressed disappointment over MMA government’s response to the NSC recommendations and said the government officials concerned might better be asked why they were not implementing these recommendations.

“We have submitted our recommendations in the form of a report and now it is up to the government to implement these,” he told Dawn.

NSC offices are located at a deserted bungalow on the Mall road. The offices, consisting of a hall and three rooms with a part used as a mosque, are lying empty. It was previously used as the defunct commissioner’s house.

The NSC helped the provincial government in formulating the Sharia Bill in 2003. It was adopted by the NWFP Assembly in June 2003. In November, 2006, the provincial assembly passed the Hasba Bill to enforce Islamic laws in the province.

The controversial Hasba Bill was later challenged in the Supreme Court.

The council formed three commissions to prepare recommendations for Islamisation of education and economic systems in the province.

A commission headed by Maulana Hussain Ahmed was also set up to prepare recommendations on judicial reforms for the provincially-administered tribal areas.

Mufti Kifayatullah, naib nazim of Mansehra and member of the NSC, said the education commission had submitted its report a long time ago.The economic commission, however, had not been able to prepare its recommendations regarding the establishment of an interest-free system, while judicial reforms were yet to be finalised, said an NSC member.

“The MMA government is left with very little time and a lot needs to be done by the commissions formed under the NSC,” he said.

“The NWFP government has dropped the Hasba Bill for the time being and is not taking it up after the bill was challenged in the Supreme Court.

There is also an implementation gap regarding the bill,” said law secretary Shahid Naseem Chamkani.