Pending legislation: SHC gives govt two weeks to implement law to protect children

The orders came on a petition to get Nadra to include the ‘guardian’ option on its forms.

KARACHI: The provincial government has been given 15 days to have the Sindh Children Protection Authority Act 2009 - which proposes establishing an authority to look after orphaned and abandoned children - approved by the chief minister before his tenure ends.

The issue of the child protection authority’s establishment arose during the hearing of a petition, which demanded adding a ‘guardian’ column in the registration forms of abandoned and orphaned children in Sindh. A woman had gone to court over the issue of registering an adopted child. She herself had adopted a baby and sent an application to National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) to have the child registered in her name.

But officials said that they could not register the child in the name of a single woman as the father’s name was required. Her counsel, Barrister Abdul Rahman, claimed that the registration forms currently lack the ‘guardian’ option, which is an omission on the part of Nadra. The court was requested to order the registeration authority to modify the form. The case, however, took another turn when the judges came to know of the Sindh Children Protection Authority Act 2009. The law calls for an authority to be set up to look after orphaned and abandoned children. But the authority could not be established over the years as the chief minister has yet to approve the law.



On the last hearing, the judges had asked the government to get the act implemented. On Friday, Additional Advocate General Miran Muhammad Shah said that according to the provincial chief secretary, all pending schemes - including the Sindh Children Protection Authority Act 2009 - would be decided within ten to fifteen days. He requested the court for some time to sort out the issue.

Chief Justice Mushir Alam, who headed the bench, allowed the government 15 days to have the act implemented by the chief minister. After this time period, a hearing would be held to check the progress on the case.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 23^rd, 2013.