Pakistan court sentences man to 80 lashes for false adultery accusation

A Pakistani court has sentenced a man to 80 lashes for falsely accusing his former wife of adultery, in a rare ruling under the country’s Islamic defamation law, known as Qazf.

The verdict was delivered by an Additional District and Sessions Court in Okara, a city in the eastern Punjab province of Pakistan. Judge Rana Khalil Ahmed found the accused, Muhammad Boota, guilty after rehearing the case in line with directions from the Federal Shariat Court, which ensures that laws comply with Islamic principles.

According to case details, Boota alleged that his former wife, Sofia Bibi, did not live with him as his spouse even for a single day after their marriage and that no marital relationship was ever established. He claimed that she returned to her parents’ home the day after the wedding.

Nine months later, Sofia Bibi gave birth to a daughter. Boota subsequently divorced her and filed a case in a civil court, asserting that he could not be the father of the child due to the alleged absence of marital relations. He also requested that his name not be recorded as the father in the records of Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), the government body responsible for maintaining citizens’ identity data.

In response, Sofia Bibi filed a complaint of Qazf in the sessions court, accusing Boota of making a false allegation of adultery. After initial proceedings, she challenged the matter in the Federal Shariat Court.

During the hearing, her counsel, Nayar Iqbal Lakhvi, presented arguments establishing that Muhammad Boota was the biological father of the child. The Federal Shariat Court ruled that the offence of Qazf had been proven and remanded the case to the sessions court with directions to decide the matter in accordance with Islamic law.

Upon rehearing arguments from both sides, the sessions court found Boota guilty and sentenced him to 80 lashes for making a false accusation of adultery.

Qazf is an offence under Pakistan’s legal framework derived from Islamic jurisprudence, which prescribes punishment for falsely accusing someone of adultery without sufficient evidence.