What happened: On Jan 7, Justice Ali Zia Bajwa passed a verdict in Lahore High Court, dismissing a plea for filing of case in Muzaffargarh district court on Zina’s charges, stating: “Union of husband and wife in an irregular marriage, without observing the period of Iddat, may have consequences under Islamic law but it cannot be treated as unlawful.” Back-story: A man named Ameer Bakhsh asked the LHC to reject the district court’s decision, claiming that his wife had broken Islamic law by entering into a second marriage without first observing the Iddat period. As a result, he claimed, his ex-wife had been committing Zina. The petitioner told the court that his application to register a case under sections 4 and 5 of the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance, 1979, was denied by the sessions court. Bakhsh’s counsel stated that the ex-wife “secretly” filed for a dissolution of her marriage and obtained an ex-parte decree against the petitioner from the family court through an order dated January 20, 2021. What happened next: While rejecting the petition, Justice Ali Zia Bajwa stated that, under Islamic law, a divorced woman’s marriage contracted before the completion of the Iddat period would be an irregular marriage but not ‘void.’ He further added: “I do not agree with this contention because perusal of all these precedents transpires that all these decisions were rendered by the constitutional courts before December 1, 2006, when Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Act, 2006 was not in existence.”“I do not agree with this contention because perusal of all these precedents transpires that all these decisions were rendered by the constitutional courts before December 1, 2006, when Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Act, 2006 was not in existence.”