Kindergarten teacher M. Indira Gandhi, who was told last week that the civil court has no jurisdiction to hear the unilateral conversion of her children, will complete her appeal process in the Federal Court, said her lawyer M. Kula Segaran. Her team of lawyers are awaiting the written grounds of the Court of Appeal ruling before framing legal questions to obtain leave from the apex court, he said. “She has given a firm instruction that her case should be ventilated in the highest court of the land, come what may be,” Kula Segaran told The Malaysian Insider.
Constitutional lawyers yesterday said Indira must exhaust all legal avenues since the Court of Appeal ruling last week held that conversion was a religious matter for the Shariah Court to decide. On December 30, the Court of Appeal led by Datuk Balia Yusof Wahi in a majority ruling held that the validity of conversion of three children by their Muslim father could only be determined by the shariah court. Setting aside the Ipoh High Court ruling in 2013, it said the civil court did not have the jurisdiction to hear the conversion. The lone dissenting judge on the three-man bench, Datuk Hamid Sultan Abu Backer, however, said the children’s conversion was purely administrative and the civil court could inquire into it. The children’s conversion certificates were previously quashed by the Ipoh High Court in July 2013. The then High Court judge Lee Swee Seng cited provisions under Perak shariah law where the children must be present to utter the affirmation of faith or the “shahadah”. This matter arose after the children’s father, Muhammad Riduan Abdullah, whose original name was K. Patmanathan, converted them without the knowledge and consent of Indira. The two elder children Tevi Darsiny and Karan Dinish are currently in Indira’s custody while the youngest, Prasana Diksa, is being held by Riduan despite a High Court ruling in 2011 ordering custody to the mother.(V. ANBALAGAN)
Link: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/indira-to-take-childrens-conversion-case-to-federal-court-says-lawyer
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