The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the National Investigation Agency to probe a case pertaining to a Muslim man’s marriage to a Hindu woman converted to Islam. The court’s decision came on the NIA’s contention that the case, which pertains to Kerala, did not appear to be an isolated incident.
A bench of Chief Justice of India J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud, while ordering the NIA probe, also appointed retired SC judge, Justice R V Raveendran, to monitor the probe. The top court has directed the NIA to complete the probe and furnish the report before it.
The court said it will take a view in the case after considering the report by NIA, inputs from Kerala Police and after talking to the woman, Akhila Ashokan, who converted to Islam before marrying Shafin Jahan, a Muslim man in December last year. The Kerala High Court had later annulled the marriage.
Shafin Jahan, a Kerala native, moved the top court against the state HC order annulling his marriage to Hadiya, the name Akhila took post her conversion to Islam. The girl’s father KM Ashokan had alleged that it was a case of fraudulent conversion.
Last week, the court had asked the Kerala police to hand over the case files to NIA for a preliminary examination.
Appearing for the NIA, Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh apprised the court that the NIA had noticed similar patterns in two cases.
“We have arrived at some observations…The lady who takes custody gets them married…Some of the entities also appeared to be common… the girls leave their home because of differences with parents and somebody volunteers to give them shelter…this requires investigation”, he said adding, “the two outfits involved in this..perhaps they were having links with SIMI,” The Indian Express reported today.
(With PTI inputs)
