NIA out of Hadiya’s marriage

SC holds her choice to marry, convert as ‘independent’, limits case to HC’s annulment

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court said on Thursday the National Investigation Agency (NIA) cannot probe the marriage of Hadiya, a 24-year-old Kerala woman who converted from Hinduism to Islam, to Shafin Jahan as she was an adult who made an independent choice.

A bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra indicated the court’s focus would be on whether the Kerala high court took the right decision in annulling the marriage, an order that has been challenged by Jahan.

“We make it clear... the question before us is whether the high court could have annulled the marriage of two adults,” the court told NIA counsel additional solicitor general Maninder Singh.

The anti-terrorism investigation agency could carry on with the probe into criminality or broader conspiracy but “there should not be any kind of umbrella of this court”, it said.

The marriage would have to be separated from any kind of criminal conspiracy, activity and action, “otherwise it would create a bad precedent in law. You (NIA) cannot investigate someone’s marital status”, the court said.

The Supreme Court had on August 16, 2017 asked the anti-terrorism investigation agency to probe the marriage and also claims by Hadiya’s father that the marriage was part of a broader Islamic radicalisation plan, often loosely referred to as “love jihad”.

“Whether she made an independent choice. Only she knows. She is 24-year-old. We cannot get into her thinking… Legitimacy of marriage can only be questioned either by the woman or the man,” the court said while hearing Jehan’s petition.

All the remarks were oral observations and not a written order.

“We are only concerned with the choice of an adult. Whether she is brainwashed or not is not our concern. Now she is not in the confines of anyone. If she says I am happy then we will not into the sequences of how she married,” the court said.

Jehan’s counsel senior advo-

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Legitimacy of (the) marriage can only be questioned either by the woman or the man. SUPREME COURT

cate Kapil Sibal had asked the court to stop the NIA probe.

Advocate Madhvi Diwan, appearing for Hadiya’s father, asked the court not to ignore the NIA’s findings that marriage was a device to entrap young girls to make them join international terror outfits.

Only Hadiya could have complained about it but she told the court “she willingly married the man. The court cannot go into the legitimacy of her choice”, the bench said.

The SC will now hear the case on February 22.

Born Akhila Ashokan, Hadiya married Jahan without her family’s consent in December 2016. Her father, Ashokan KM, approached the high court, alleging there was a “well-oiled systematic mechanism” for conversion and Islamic radicalisation that had trapped his daughter. The high court struck down the marriage as a “sham”.