Consensus reached on setting up Quran Board

Senate panel passes bill to amend 1973 Act

ISLAMABAD:

Federal Minister for Religious Affairs and Inter-faith Harmony Sahibzada Noorul Haq Qadri on Monday said that all stakeholders have agreed to set up Quran Board for the publication of error-free Holy Book.

Talking to the media after the meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Religious Affairs and Inter-faith Harmony, the minister said the initiative was aimed at ensuring exact and correct printing of the Holy Quran at the national level.

Earlier, the Standing Committee on Religious Affairs and Inter-Faith Harmony unanimously passed a bill to further amend the Publication of the Holy Quran (Elimination of Printing and Recording Errors) Act, 1973.

The committee, met with Member of National Assembly Asad Mahmood in the chair, was told that there was no the national-level department for protection and standardisation of printing of the Holy Quran.

The body underlined the need for establishing a national-level Quran Board for this holy purpose. It was further told that there was no law to recycle old pages of the Quran by ensuring their sanctity. The bill would ensure the recycling of old pages of the holy book in a respectable and responsible way.

Read MPAs demand display of Quranic verses in public offices

Later, the minister denied the allegations levelled against him for renting out the old building of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Inter-faith Harmony at Melody.

Terming the allegations 'baseless' and 'unfounded', he said the same building was rented out against an amount of Rs1.4 million in 2018 when he was not the minister of religious affairs. Now, its rent was increased to Rs6.4 million, he added.

Moreover, the bill to amend the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, 1961 was referred to the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) for its expert opinion in light of Shariah.

The forum also examined two other bills titled "The National Commission for Rights of Non-Muslims Act, 2021" moved by Naveed Amir Jeeva, and "The National Commission for Minorities Act, 2021" moved by James Iqbal.

However, Qadri informed the body that they had already constituted the National Commission for Minorities on the direction of the apex court while they are shortly introducing a bill for the establishment and sustainably running the affairs of the commission.

He further requested not to examine the two bills for the time being. The committee postponed the examination of the two bills till its next meeting.