ISLAMABAD - A five member bench of the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) led by Chief Justice Agha Rafiq Ahmed Khan will take up the Riba case (interest case) for hearing today.
The other four judges on the bench of the court, which deals with religio-legal matters, are Justice Allama Dr Fida Muhammad Khan, Justice Rizwan Ali Dodani, Justice Sheikh Ahmad Farooq and Justice Shahzado Shaikh would hear the case.
The Federal Shariat Court in 1992 had declared Riba as un-Islamic but the then government of Nawaz Sharif appealed the judgement in the Supreme Court through nationalised and other banks. The apex court took years to hear this appeal and in 1999 the Shariat Appellate Bench of the SC upheld the decision of the FSC.
The Supreme Court gave then government of General Musharraf two years to amend all the banking laws and other statutes to get rid of Riba. But the government, instead of implementing the FSC decision as endorsed by the SC, again took up the matter with the post-2000 PCO SC, which in 2002 remanded the case back to the Federal Shariat Court.
Legal experts and religious scholar maintain that the continuation of Riba in our banking and economic system is not only unconstitutional but is also against the teachings of Quran and Sunnah.