ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court asked Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt on Monday to assist it in determining the maintainability of a petition seeking elimination of Riba (usury) from the financial system.
A three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed that had taken up a review petition by Tanzeem-i-Islami Pakistan Emir Hafiz Akif Saeed against the Oct 6, 2015, order of dismissing the petition regarding elimination of Riba on the grounds that the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) was seized with a similar plea.
While dismissing the petition, the apex court had observed that FSC had issued certain directions to the government for the elimination of riba and the matter was still pending in the Shariat Court.
In 1992 FSC had declared Riba repugnant to the injunctions of Islam. It was upheld by the Supreme Court’s Shariat Appellate Bench in 1999 and the then government was given two years to amend all banking laws of the country and other statutes to prohibit Riba.
But the government and some banks instituted a review petition before the Supreme Court bench, headed by then Chief Justice Sheikh Riaz, against the ruling.
The bench remanded the case in 2002 back to the FSC to reconsider the matter. The apex court also directed FSC to take input from contemporary jurists of the Muslim world. The case is still pending before FSC.
On Monday, Advocate Raja Mohammad Irshad, representing the petitioner, contended that neither such direction were passed by FSC for the purpose of elimination of Riba nor this issue was pending before the Shariat Court. Therefore, the earlier rejections of the plea contained glaring mistake that floats on the surface of the record.
Referring to Article 38-f of the constitution, the counsel argued that it was the duty of the state to eliminate Riba as early as possible but the state had utterly failed to enforce the same.
It was beyond the jurisdiction of FSC to give direction to the state for the implementation of Article 38-f of the constitution, he said, adding that the constitutional authority available to the apex court was much wider compared to FSC.
Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2016