He said that the court of law in such cases could resort to those relevant sections to award sentences. Therefore, he said, the Council ruled that there was no need to amend the blasphemy law but its misuse needed to be stopped. Sheerani said if section 295-C was misused or wrongly interpreted in blasphemy law, it could also happen in other cases of laws. To discourage such misuse section 194 and section 211 of the Constitution must read with Section 295 of the Constitution of Pakistan, he added.
The blasphemy law was legislated in 1986 and Section 295-C reads: "Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine."
He further said that the Council has regularly sent reports to both Houses of Parliament and Provincial Assemblies for debate and considerations of their recommendations. "We have submitted 18 reports of CII to National Assembly, Senate and Provincial Assemblies with recommendations. During the period of 1997-2009, parliament did not allow to lay down the reports before the House," he revealed.
Responding to a question, he said that The CII is a constitutional body that advises the legislature whether or not a certain law is repugnant to Islam, namely to the Qur'an and Sunna. "We can advise the parliament on certain laws or introduce an Islamic laws in parliament on the directives of the government but it is entirely depending upon the government to accommodate their recommendations or reject them," he explained. Responding to another question regarding ignoring the recommendations of government, he admitted that it was also a matter of 'Shariah' and the Council filed a case in Shariat Court which is pending there.
He said that the Council's members unanimously rejected the Women Protection Bill passed by the previous government. The Council dismissing the Women Protection Act 2006, recommended to re-examine the act. The members of the council said that the Act is controversial in which various clauses of the act are against Quran and Sunnah, he explained. Answering another question, he said that the CII termed DNA test in connection with forced rape as insufficient and not primary evidence, saying weak evidence could affect the health of the issue as well as distorting it from the reality.
The council recognised that DNA test could prove much helpful in such cases so it should be accepted as secondary evidence but members of the council convinced that the rape was a crime that required much care in account of evidences and DNA did not stand with accurate parameters as evidence for the crime. He further explained that the working of CII was entirely different from Ministry of Religious Affairs which has administrative supremacy over the CII but it was not a subsidiary of the Ministry as it is a constitutional body.