Justice Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhary said he was turning down the request because petitioner Laiba Sehar had lied to the court during a previous hearing when she sought permission to marry a condemned prisoner. He issued a contempt notice to Sehar for August 17.
Justice Chaudhry had earlier granted Sehar permission to marry the prisoner and ordered jail officials to make arrangements for the wedding. Sehar had told the judge the prisoner was her fiancé and she wanted to marry him before he was executed. But the judge later received a petition from Sehar’s father Muhammad Sarwar, who urged the court to review its decision because his daughter was lying. Sarwar said Sehar’s original name was Sidra Kanwal and she was already married to a man named Muhammad Nadeem Ahmed in April 2009. He said Sehar had filed a suit for dissolution of her marriage and received an ex parte decree in her favour on January 20, 2010.
Meanwhile Nadeem, unaware of the divorce suit, had a case registered with police stating that his wife had been kidnapped, said Sarwar. Her father had also lodged an abduction case as he did not know where his daughter was. After hearing from Sarwar, the court sent Sehar to live at the shelter. She challenged the judge’s decision to rescind her marriage permission order but a division bench rejected her appeal.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 12th, 2010.
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