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Kerala 'Love jihad' case: SC sets aside High Court order that annulled Hadiya aka Akhila's marriage with Shafin Jahan

By FnF Correspondent | PUBLISHED: 08, Mar 2018, 17:08 pm IST | UPDATED: 08, Mar 2018, 17:29 pm IST

Kerala 'Love jihad' case: SC sets aside High Court order that annulled Hadiya aka Akhila's marriage with Shafin Jahan New Delhi: The Supreme Court today said that Hadiya's marriage with her husband Shafin Jahan is legal and valid, and a relationship she has formed of her free will and consent.

In doing so, the apex court overturned an earlier order of Kerala HC, which had cancelled the marriage saying it wasn't legal as she entered into it out of coercion or was brainwashed into it.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud said it was restoring Hadiya and Jahan's marriage, as it had interacted with the former and found that she had exercised her consent in getting married.

With today's order, the two will be deemed legally married and can live as a couple without being harassed by any state agency.

The SC, however, said that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into the alleged 'love jihad' phenomenon would be taken to its logical conclusion by the agency in accordance with the law.

In its status report submitted to the SC, the NIA had said that a well-oiled system prevailed in Kerala to indoctrinate people to embrace Islam.

Earlier this week, Hadiya's father KM Asokan told the top court that his efforts prevented her from being transported to "extremist-controlled territories" of Syria to be used as a "sex slave or a human bomb".

Asokan said his daughter was a "vulnerable adult" and she "abjectly surrendered herself to complete strangers who adopted her into their fold, offering her shelter and protection and further imparted religious indoctrination in an isolated environment".

Hadiya, however, told the court that she embraced Islam + of her own free will and wanted to continue living as a Muslim. In an affidavit filed before the top court, she said that she had married Jahan of her own volition and sought the court's permission to "live as his wife".

"I hereby submit that I embraced the faith/religion of Islam on my choice as per my conscience and on my own free will after studying about Islam and thereafter I married a person, namely Shafin Jahan, from the same faith as per my choice and on my own free will. However, despite the fact that I submitted repeatedly before the Kerala High Court that I made the above choices on my own free will, the HC did not heed to my submissions," she said.

Hadiya accused the NIA of wrongly projecting Jahan as a terrorist.

The apex court had earlier allowed her to resume her Bachelors in Homeopatic Medicine and Surgery (BMHS) at a Salem-based college.

The NIA, meanwhile, has been probing whether Hadiya was forced to convert to Islam.  The NIA’s probe, on direction from the Supreme Court, began in August last year.

Here is a timeline of the Akhila case:

August 2010: Akhila, the only daughter of K M Ashokan, applied for admission to a private institute, Sivaraj Homeopathy Medical College & Research Institute in Salem, Tamil Nadu. In the institute, she becomes friends with two Muslim sisters. This was the first time Akhila have had Muslim friends or Muslim acquaintances.

2011-12: Akhila soon started listening to Islamic sermons on her phone, downloaded from the Internet. Soon, she had questions about Islam that her friends found difficult to answer. When Akhila was home on leave during Ramzan, she also observed a fast. Later, for Eid-ul-Fitr, she joined her friends, Jaseela and Faseena, at their home in Angadippuram in Malappuram. Akhila also spoke to Jaseela’s father Parayil Aboobacker to clear her doubts about Islam.

September 10, 2015: Akhila makes first attempt to convert to Islam, gets an affidavit attested by an advocate in Kochi, Kerala, saying she was living as a Muslim under no compulsion from anyone.

November 2015: While Akhila kept this conversion bid a secret, relatives say Ponnamma knew of her daughter’s growing leanings towards Islam. Matters came to a head in November 2015, when Akhila’s grandfather died and she refused to join the 40th-day rituals.

January 1, 2016: She urged her parents to embrace Islam arguing that it was a good religion compared to Hinduism. When the parents refused, Akhila left home on January 1, 2016, apparently to return to college in Salem. Instead, she went to her friend’s Malappuram home.

January 2: At her insistence, says Jaseela’s father P Aboobacker, he takes her to an advocate, where she registers an affidavit saying she was embracing Islam of her own will.

January 5: Considering Akhila’s insistence to learn more about Islam, Aboobacker says, he took her to two Islamic institutions in Kozhikode. Both refused to admit Akhila instantly. Akhila and Aboobacker have a fight, after which he refuses to help Akhila further and sends her back to college.

January 6: One of her classmates told all this to her father, and an anxious Asokan started calling her. Akhila, however, refused to return home, and instead again went to Jaseela’s house. She approaches Islamic learning centre Sathya Sarani

January 8: Ashokan files case against Aboobacker

January 11: Aboobacker is arrested and faces charges of fomenting communal enmity. He is released after two days

January 12: Ashokan moves the first habeas corpus in the high court

January 18: Akhila is produced before the court, refuses to go with parents

January 21 to March 21: Akhila alias Hadiya stays at Sathya Sarani to learn about Islam. Zainaba, who once worked with the Sathya Sarani, says the institute had sought her help to ascertain Akhila’s intentions. Akhila attended a course at Sathya Sarani and returned to Zainaba’s house as ‘Hadiya’. “Now Hadiya also started talking about marriage, hoping to find some support system. At her behest, I registered her name on a matrimonial website,” says Zainaba.

August 17: A police officer says the marriage plans were the tipping point for Hadiya’s father. He says Ashokan, being an atheist, was not as concerned about his daughter’s conversion until then. He was, however, worried about a few Kerala Muslims leaving to join the Islamic State along with their wives. Ashokan moves a fresh writ petition in HC, alleging there is a plan to take his daughter to Syria to fight for Islamic State

August 22: In response to her father’s plea, Hadiya was produced before court on August 22. Again she refused to go with her parents and said she wanted to stay with Zainaba. However, the court sent her to a hostel in Kochi.

August 26: Hadiya filed an affidavit in court saying he embraced Islam of her will.

September 29: Hadiya allowed to return to Zainaba.

December 19: Hadiya gets married to Shefin Jahan. Both were introduced to each other through a Muslim matrimonial website

December 21, 2016: Two days after their wedding, Hadiya returned to court with Shefin. But the court sent Hadiya to the hostel again and ordered Shefin not to have any contact with her. They weren’t allowed to talk at subsequent hearings either.

May 24, 2017: Kerala High Court annuls the marriage. Ordering a probe, it said, “A girl aged 24 is weak and vulnerable, capable of being exploited in many ways.” It sends Hadiya back to her parents and puts her under police surveillance

August 16: On Jahan’s appeal against HC order, Supreme Court orders NIA probe. ” The NIA’s involvement is necessary to ascertain if this is really an isolated case or is there something more… something wider…,” the bench said. Jahan, was reportedly unhappy with the involvement of NIA, saying that it amounted to distrusting the police. The Supreme Court, however, rejected his claims and said that the “purpose of issuing notice to NIA on the first day itself was for neutral and unbiased assistance”.

November 27: SC frees Hadiya from parents’ custody. During the hearing, which went for over two hours, the woman said she wanted to go with her husband Shefin Jahan. “I want freedom…I want to remain true to my faith,” the 24-year-old said. The apex court allowed Hadiya to resume her House Surgeoncy in Salem-based Homeo Medical College and appoints principal as guardian.

November 28: Dr G Kannan, the principal of Sivaraj Homeopathy College, said he won’t allow anyone to meet Hadiya except her parents.“See, I do not know who her husband is. She is still Akhila for us, and her guardians are her parents who admitted her. In the present scenario, I will not allow anyone except her parents. We will make sure that I or an official are present when her parents visit her,” he said.

November 29: Hadiya says she wanted the freedom to meet her husband, Shefin Jehan.“My demand in the court was freedom, the freedom to meet my husband, but the truth is that I am not free now. I didn’t get freedom,” she told the press outside the Sivaraj Homeopathic Medical College. Hadiya speaks to Husvan Shefin Jahan on phone.

December 9, 2017: Hadiya meets her husband at her homoeopathic medical college in Salem under CCTV surveillance. College sources said that Jahan visited Hadiya along with two others, including his lawyer. The college authorities allowed the meeting after both Jahan and Hadiya sought permission.

January 24, 2018: SC says NIA cannot probe and that Hadiya’s choice of a husband cannot be questioned. “She may be brainwashed, but what can we do? Whether the man to whom she is married is good or not is for her to decide. Whether it’s an independent choice or not, only she knows. We can’t get into it. If she comes to court and says she married by her choice, that’s the end of it,” said a three-judge bench headed by CJI Dipak Misra.

February 21: Hadiys says she wants to live with Shefin.

February 23: SC questions if Kerala HC can annul marriage of consenting adults. “Can there be a roving inquiry into matrimonial relationship between two consenting adults to find if there was no consent,” Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra asked.

March 8, 2018: The Supreme Court sets aside the Kerala High Court order annulling the marriage and allows Hadiya to live with her husband. Reacting to the Supreme Court order, Ashokan said he was pained to let his daughter go with a “terrorist”. He said he would continue his legal battle and claimed NIA, too, was pursuing probe because it was convinced Shefin was a terrorist.
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