Kerala Love Jihad Case: SC directs father to produce Hadiya on 27 Nov
New Delhi, October 30: Today in the hearing over sensational ‘Hadiya case’ the Supreme Court observed that the consent of the girl for the marriage is supreme as she is an adult by law. Also Supreme Court directed that Hadiya shall be produced before it to ascertain if she, an adult, had married Shafin Jahan out of her own free will after her conversion. Ashokan, the father of the 24 year old woman has been asked to produce the girl at 3pm on November 27.
The order by a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra was given despite stiff objection by Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh who appeared for Centre and Shyam Divan who represented the woman’s father who has the custody of the girl now after the Kerala High Court quashed the marriage and gave her custody to him. Both of them had argued that “indoctrination and psychological influence are exceptions to consent’ but the bench said all these issues will be dealt with later.
Kerala’s love Jihad’s Hadiya case had been making rounds where the marriage of a Hindu woman,Hadiya alias Akhila took place with Shafin Jahan, who had converted to Islam. Earlier also in a hearing the Supreme Court stated that the father can't have control over a 24-year-old adult. This was observed when the father of woman lodged complaint that she had been unlawfully brainwashed into Islam and held captive by her husband.
Exactly a month after the Supreme Court handed over the investigation into the alleged conversion and subsequent marriage of the Hindu girl to a Muslim man in Kerala, an application was filed on September 19 requesting the apex court to stop the the NIA probe in the light of fresh evidence that have emerged post its August 16 order that the girl converted of her own free will and she is being confined and “tortured” by her parents.
Earlier Supreme Court ordered a probe by National Investigation Agency (NIA) into this case where the marriage of Hindu woman Akhila Asokan to a Muslim man Shafin Jahan after her conversion was cancelled by the Kerala High Court as it constituted to ‘Love Jihad’. Earlier, the top court had ordered an NIA probe into the case, even as Shafin Jahan, Hadiya's husband had on September 16 filed a plea requesting it to cancel the NIA probe.
Earlier the Kerala HC, declared the marriage as “null and void”, had described the case as an instance of ‘love jihad’ and ordered the state police to conduct the probe into such cases. The SC earlier said it will take a view after considering NIA’s report, inputs from Kerala Police and after talking to the woman. The direction came after NIA told the apex court that love jihad is for real. “There is a pattern to convert Hindu girls and get them married to Muslim men,” NIA told SC. On June 10, the SC had allowed NIA to access all records of the investigation into the case.