PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang has expressed his gratitude to Putrajaya after receiving support from the government for the tabling of the Hudud Bill.

"Thank you to the government for allowing this motion," he said.

The private member's bill has been in the Parliament order paper for several sessions but had never seen the light of day until today, after it received backing from the government.

However, Hadi later asked that the bill to only be debated in the next session due to a lack of time as today is the last day of the House sitting for this session.

"It's to give time to MPs as today is the last day," he told briefly when asked by journalists at the Parliament lobby.

Even though the surprise move today fizzled out, it still made a powerful statement - PAS has some level of backing from BN in its hudud agenda.

The bill is colloquially referred to as the Hudud Bill but it is specifically to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 or Act 355.

At present, Act 355 limits the Syariah Courts punishment to a maximum fine of RM5,000, three years jail or six strokes of the whip.

The amendment seeks to increase this limit to pave way for the partial implementation of hudud, which punishment using the whip, for example, requires between 40 to 100 strokes.

Abdul Hadi also reiterated that the bill would only affect Muslims.

“The motion is about upgrading the Syariah Courts. It is the fourth time I am putting this forward since 1995. It is nothing new.

“It only concerns Muslims and has nothing to do with non-Muslims,” he said.

In March last year, PAS updated its hudud legislation in Kelantan, known as the Syariah Criminal Code II Enactment 1993 which had yet to be implemented in the last 23 years due to its conflict with federal law.

Subsequently, Abdul Hadi had repeatedly tried to table the bill in Parliament to change the federal law in order for the Kelantan enactment on hudud to be implemented.