A Pakistani court in Islamabad on Saturday sentenced former prime minister and PTI leader Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi to seven years in jail each for violating the marriage law.
According to the Dawn, the court also imposed a fine of Pakistani Rs 500,000 fines each on Bibi and Khan. As the court found that the marriage was done during Bushra Bibi’s Iddat (period of waiting). If the two did not pay the fine, they will get 4 more months in jail.
The verdict has stirred a controversy as feminists and women lawyers in Pakistan slammed the judge for violating the settled principle of law on the issue. The women activists are raising voice against the verdict for hurting the dignity of a woman by discussing issues like mensuration that are private affairs of a woman.
“From Maneka’s statement that his wife was “absolutely normal” in her menstruation to Judge Qudrat Ullah questioning whether ‘any sort of meeting in isolation’ by namehram (stranger) male and female is permissible in Islam– this judgment is shameful and a travesty of justice, human rights”. The proceedings + convictions in the “iddat case” (or specifically, “going through a marriage ceremony fraudulently without being lawfully married”) are a damning blot on our justice system.” Lawyer and political commentator Reema Omer wrote on her X account.
She further added that it is horrifying the State stooped this low seemingly just to humiliate Imran Khan, Bushra Bibi.
She further added that by “making a woman’s menstrual cycle the subject of criminal inquiry (as well as public debate), this case has cast a blow to women’s right to dignity and privacy, as well as their freedom to make decisions about divorce and marriage without fear of being dragged in court”.
Nighat Dad, lawyer and feminist, also called the verdict an “appalling miscarriage of justice” and said that it “epitomises the grotesque intrusion into women’s private lives, stooping to the extent of public humiliation. It is a brazen assault on women’s autonomy, dignity, & privacy, a dangerous precedent for state overreach into personal spheres”.
She said despite several amendments enacted in Pakistan to shield women from legal abuse related to adultery and fornication if the state whimsically invokes sections 496 & 496-B PPC, it renders women’s protection merely illusory in the face of arbitrary state power.
A civil judge announced the verdict after hearing the complaint raised by Bushra Bibi’s former husband Khawar Fareed Maneka.
The judge in his written order, said that the two were found guilty under Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) Section 496 (marriage ceremony fraudulently gone through without lawful marriage), the Dawn reported. However, the verdict upheld Khan and Bibi’s second marriage in Feb 2019 as legal.
The verdict comes after Khan and Bushra Bibi were sentenced to 14 years in the Toshakhana case. Khan was also awarded a 10-year sentence in the cipher case this week.