 Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif of Lahore High Court on Thursday quashed a second case registered under the slavery vani law because the alleged offence occurred before vani was made a crime. Justice Sharif observed that vani, the custom of enslaving giving girls in marriage as compensation for an offence committed by a family member, as an offence came to statute on November 1, 2005, whereas the alleged contract of marriage in the case took in September 2004, which meant that at the time of action it was not an offence. The judge said the law couldnÂ’t be applied with retrospective effect as mentioned in Article 12 of the Constitution. |