Aatmja Kumari(Intern Journalist): New Delhi; The draft of the proposed rules of Hindu Marriage Act passed in 2017 by the Pakistani government is reported to have disappeared. According to official sources, the copy of the Hindu marriage law has gone missing from the local office of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government. In fact, a copy of the proposed rules was sent to the local government commissioner of the provincial secretariat for his consent, but it is now missing.
Officials said the matter was revealed when the directorate, while replying to the secretariat’s reply letter, stated that they had not received any copy of the proposed rules. Secretariat officials said the directorate has shared details about the file diary number and other data so that the file can be traced. This law was passed to regulate the marriage of minority Hindus in Pakistan.
Significantly, the historic Hindu Marriage Bill was passed to help Hindu women get documentary evidence of their marriage. It is the first personal law for Pakistani Hindus, which is in force in the provinces of Punjab, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while the Sindh province has already prepared its Hindu marriage law. However the provincial governments were tasked with drafting the rules for the act.