Petitions against Women Protection Act: FSC to announce judgement tomorrow

The Federal Shariat Court (FSC) is all set to announce its verdict on Wednesday on petitions challenging women protection law, adopted by Parliament in 2006. A three-member bench of the FSC, comprising Chief Justice Agha Raifq Ahmad, Justice Afzal Haider and Justice Shahzado Sheikh, had reserved the judgement last month.
Various provisions of Women Protection Act 2006 and provisions of PPC had been challenged before FSC for being repugnant to the injunctions of Islam. The court after examining these provisions in the light of Quran and Sunnah, and hearing the views of acclaimed ulema of the country, had reserved the judgement.
Four identical petitions challenging the law were filed before the FSC between 2007 and 2010. The petitioners argued that the law in question was against the constitution, which states that 'Islam will be the state religion', and no laws will be passed which are repugnant to the Quran and the Sunnah.
The petitioners Muhammad Akhtar, Abdul Latif Sufi and Abdul Razzaq had filed the petitions. Their stance was that clauses removed from Hadood Ordinance should be inserted again so that people in an Islamic state may live their lives in accordance with the Islamic laws and principles.
Clause 365(B) is about kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel for marriage; 367-A mentions that kidnapping or abducting in order to subject person to unnatural lust; 371-A says selling and buying a person for purposes of prostitution; 493-A describes that cohabitation caused by a man deceitfully inducing a belief of lawful marriage; and 496-A says enticing or taking away or detaining a woman with criminal intent.
The government of Pervez Musharraf had termed the legislation of Women's Protection Act as 'historic', and claimed that it was not against Islam. The said act had omitted a few clauses of the Hudood Ordinance about Zina, Zina bil-jabr and Qazf. The ordinance has been subjected to harsh criticism by the US, UK, EU, Pakistan's civil society, human rights activists and women's rights organisations.