You can’t question the legitimacy of Hadiya’s marriage: SC tells NIA

In what can be termed as an interim relief for Hadiya, a Hindu convert Muslim college student from Kerala, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court upheld her right to select her husband and observed that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) cannot probe her marital status.

The court said that the NIA probe will not have any bearing on the legitimacy of Hadiya's marriage to Shafin Jahan which was annulled by Kerala High Court. The apex court will continue to hear the matter on 22 February.

"You can probe anything but not on marital status, marriage has to be separated from any criminal action, aspect and conspiracy, otherwise we will be creating a bad precedent," the bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said.

"We will only examine whether the court can cancel the marriage. We can't question the legitimacy of her marriage, it is Hadiya who will decide who is a good human being or bad," the judges said.

In November, the Supreme Court freed Hadiya from her parents, who had insisted that she had been brainwashed and forced to convert, and allowed her to resume her studies at a college in Tamil Nadu, where she was studying before she married Shafin Jahan.

After conversion to Islam, Hadiya had met Shafin through a matrimonial website and later they got married. Hadiya's parents refused to accept her marriage to Shafin Jahan, claiming that he wants to take her to Syria. Hadiya, who doesn’t even holds a passport has rubbished her parents charge as a blatant lie.

In May 2017, on the Hindu parents’ petition, the Kerala High Court annulled Hadiya's marriage and ordered her to go back to her parents. She was kept under house arrest for several months where she was allegedly tortured by her parents and Hindutva extremists groups.

Shafin Jahan had challenged the order in the Supreme Court, arguing that as an adult, she has the right to decide. In an interim order on a petition by Jahan challenging the high court verdict, the Supreme Court had on 27 November 2017 set Hadiya free from the custody of her parents. The apex court, however, did not accept her plea to be allowed to go with her husband.