LAHORE: The Mental Health Ordinance 2001 has been challenged before the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) for being repugnant to Islamic injunctions especially on inheritance between siblings.

Sehrish Sheikh, a resident of DHA Lahore, filed a petition before the Shariatcourtinpersonpleadingthatthe ordinance is being grossly misused especially in Punjab as psychiatric hospitals make records of mental disorders for their victims and earn huge money.

The petitioner, who also runs an NGO -Foundation for Empowerment through Education and Leadership (FEEL), states that the law is a sheer violation of surah An-nisa`s ayat 176, which discusses inheritance between siblings according to Islamic law.

She says the hospitals engage `na mehram` (stranger males) to torture females `patients` and administer to them drugs and injections, which damage the nervous, muscular and hormonal systems of the human body.

She alleges that the hospitals are on panels of the multi-billion dollar phar-maceutical industry promoting their drugs and injections.

The petitioner argues that the ordinance allows the hospitals to confine patients, especially women, for days, months and even years and during this period theypressure and torture the victims on behalf of their male siblings to surrender the inheritance.

Besides pressurising the victims into giving up legal rights in the properties, the petitioner alleges that the doctors at the hospitals also pressurise them to surrender their right of action against the mental health facilities otherwise they capture their victims again and make more records.

`That the oppressor when/if caught pleads insanity as a defence under the Mental Health Ordinance 2001,` the petitioner adds.

She argues that there is gross use of legal jargon in drafting the impugned ordinance to lead astray from the path of justice, wherein the word `shall` has been used more than 160 times with more than four different meanings/ interpretations each time.

The petitioner asks the court to declare the ordinance unIslamic.