Hyderabad: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) yesterday said the Darul-Qaza (Shariah courts) never claimed that they are constitutional institutions or have legal powers.
AIMPLB Assistant Secretary Mohammed Abdul Raheem Qureshi, said the Supreme Court refused to ban Darul-Qaza as sought by the petitioner.
“We never claimed that we are constitutional institutions or we have legal powers. We are private institutions and we decide the matters as per Shariah when parties approach us,” he said.
He did not agree that the Supreme Court ruling is a setback to the AIMPLB. The board has Darul-Qaza committee comprising five prominent clerics. The committee runs Shariah courts in various cities in India so that Muslims can approach them for deciding their matters in accordance with Shariah.
The petitioner contended that all fatwas have the support of the AIMPLB and alleged that it wanted to establish a parallel Islamic judicial system in India.
The apex court made it clear that a fatwa “not emanating from any judicial system recognised by law ... is not binding on anyone including the person who had asked for it.
The Darul-Uloom Deoband, India’s most influential Islamic seminary, slammed the verdict.
Spokesman Ashraf Usmani said on telephone from Deoband in Uttar Pradesh that the apex court “has never given such a wrong decision against the Shariah”.
Usmani argued that Islamic courts in fact helped the country’s judicial system by clearing many cases “which the Indian courts have not been able to do deal with”. IANS
