Dr Muhammad Shoaib Suddle, who is part of the commission on minorities’ rights at the Supreme Court, approached the court on Thursday and inquired about Pakistan’s National Minorities Commission.
The petition filed by commission registrar Abdullah Shah says the commission has constantly been facing “defiance and non-cooperation from the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony”.
The commission recently found out that the MORA moved a summary for the Cabinet to reconstitute an existing National Commission for Minorities, the petition reads. “It did not consult the commission in defiance of the court’s October 3, 2019 order.”
The body proposed by the MORA violates the “commitment made before” the court. “It does not have a statutory backing and its very existence and composition would be at the whims and mercy of MORA,” it points out. “Since its claimed existence there is nothing on record to show that it did anything of note in relation to the rights of the minorities. In fact, the minority communities are not even aware of the existence of such a body.”
