August 4, 2017:

SC heard conflicting versions concerning a 24-year-old Hindu girl converted to Islam.

The Apex Court has been presented with 2 conflicting versions concerning a 24 year old Hindu girl who converted to Islam in Kerala.

Her husband, Shafin Jahan, portrays her as an independent & devout woman who converted to Islam on her own volition & much before their wedding. Mr. Jahan has approached the SC with a request to order the girl’s father to produce her in Court.

The woman's father draws contrasting picture. It's that of a helpless victim trapped by a “well-oiled” racket that uses “psychological measures” to indoctrinate innocent people & convert them to Islam. He claims that Jahan is a criminal & his daughter was trapped by a network with connections to Popular Front of India & even the Islamic State(IS).

“My daughter once told me that she wants to do sheep-farming in Syria! Even the most liberal of fathers would be shocked to hear this,” he told a Bench of CJI J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud on Friday.

The woman was a homeopathy student when she converted to Islam & even changed her name.

Shafin Jahan had met her with his family in August 2016 in response to her ad on a marriage website. The couple got married last December.

Jahan claims that her father is holding her in illegal confinement after the Kerala HC on 24th May, “arbitrarily” annulled their marriage, condemning it as “love jihad”.

It isn't ‘love jihad’ if an adult Hindu woman on her own volition, converts to Islam and marries a Muslim man, Mr. Jahan had earlier told the SC, challenging the HC's May 24 decision.

The father, represented by advocate Madhavi Divan, said such conversions and marriages were not rare in Kerala. His daughter’s case was only the tip of the iceberg.

“Radicalisation is rampant in Kerala... Your Lordships should order an independent investigation into each of these people who're behind what happened to my daughter,” Ms. Divan submitted for the father.

Senior adv. Kapil Sibal & Indira Jaising, urged the Bench to 1st order the father to produce his daughter.

“Is she still alive? My Lords can interview her & decide the truth... She isn't a child,” Mr. Sibal submitted.

The court issued notice to the Kerala govt. & asked the National Investigation Agency(NIA) to participate in the litigation.

“Why does she have 3 names? Which 24 year old has 3 names?” CJI Khehar asked about the girl’s multiple identities.

Justice Chandrachud observed that “Prima facie, the Kerala HC had interviewed the girl before deciding to annul the marriage & return the child to her father. In this interview, the HC judgment records that her answers were incoherent. So prima facie, she seemed to have been in the control of someone else.”

The Apex court gave Ms. Divan a week’s time to place on record all necessary documents to prove the father’s version. Though initially the court said the girl should be produced in the next hearing, it later relented when Ms. Divan’s suggested that the court should 1st go through the evidence & if that is found unsatisfactory, then summon the girl.

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