Controversial para withdrawn from verdict

RAWALPINDI: Justice Mirza Viqas Rauf of the Lahore High Court (LHC), Rawalpindi bench, on Friday withdrew a paragraph of his judgement after it caused resentment among religious circles.

The paragraph in question had cited a previous order of the court that had referred to the Ahmadiyya community as a Muslim sect.

Interestingly, the application seeking a review of the judgement had not been filed by the petitioner or the respondents. The clarification from the judge came on the plea of a local leader of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan, Rizwan Ahmed.

While deciding a petition about Khula on June 12, Justice Rauf had reproduced some previous judgements related to the dissolution of marriage, including a 1959 verdict in paragraph 14.

In that paragraph, he reproduced an excerpt from Aziz Ahmad’s Muslim Law (Page 235), which contained the view of the Ahmadi faith.

Renowned clerics Mufti Muneebur Rehman, Qarif Hanif Jalandhri and Qari Yaseen Zafar wrote to the Supreme Judicial Council against the judge and suggested the SJC examine his conduct under the blasphemy law.

The clerics also suggested that the LHC judge is under obligation to reject the said citation, or expunge the entire paragraph, and issue a corrigendum in accordance with the constitution.

The applicant’s counsel argued before the court that Ahmadis were declared non-Muslims through a constitutional amendment.

Justice Rauf observed that the paragraphs related to Ahmadis “were only reproduced as extracts” from the referred judgements.

He went on to state that “with the promulgation of the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973 and more specifically by inserting definition of Muslim and non-Muslim in Article 260(3)(a) and 260(3)(b), the observations recorded in the above referred judgements automatically lose their efficacy as well as status and there remains no cavil to observe that a person… who call themselves “Ahmadis” or by any other name… and a person belonging to any of the Scheduled Castes, cannot be termed as Muslim or class/sect of Muslims.”

“With these observations this review application with the consent of all in attendance is accordingly disposed of,” the judge declared.