PESHAWAR, Jan 18: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal has expressed its concern over the delay in giving comments on the proposed Hisba Act by the Council of Islamic Ideology.
The draft had been referred to it by the NWFP governor a few months ago to seek its opinion on the issue. Speaking at a press conference here at the Peshawar Press Club on Sunday, MMA information secretary Mufti Kifaitullah said the CII was bound to give its opinion on a religious matter referred to it by anybody within 15 days of receiving it.
He said: "It shows that the CCI does not exist. We will seek opinion of senior jurists on the Act and make it more acceptable for the people." Earlier, he said, the NWFP government had sent the Hisba Act to the governor for his consent before its enforcement, but he sent it back to the government. Later, the government again referred it to governor, who sent it to the CII for advice, he added.
Ever since, he said, "we have been waiting" for the comments by the CCI, the only apex institution which could interpret and give its opinion on Islamic issues.
Mufti Kifaitullah, also a member of the NWFP Shariat Council, said the government was determined to table the Hisba Act in the provincial assembly."We want to make it acceptable for everybody. We have decided to seek opinion of constitutional experts on it. The government has invited legal experts on Jan 22 for the purpose," he said.
"We believe in the process of reforms, because we are liberal in our approach. We are not extremists," he claimed. He denied that the MMA was a pseudo-opposition or it had been organized to hoodwink the democratic forces and taint the image of the real opposition in and outside parliament.
The MMA had saved the present political system by striking a deal on several issues with the federal government, he observed. The Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, he said, wanted to advance its own agenda by opposing the MMA-government deal on the Legal Framework Order.
"We know what we should do. We are not part of the ARD, but we too are an opposition group," he said. He said the MMA was a liberal force, which believed in a peaceful process of negotiations for the solution of problems.
"We are not extremists like the ARD." The MMA, he said, would not give in to the smaller groups, who were trying to blackmail the alliance on the basis of their one or two seats.
He denied any cracks or dents in the MMA body and said all the MMA component parties were equal, whether they were big or small at the organisational level.
"The MMA supreme council takes unanimous decisions on all issues. The differences of opinion on some issues does no mean that the MMA is going to collapse," he said.