'Love jihad' case: SC sets aside Kerala high court order that annulled Hadiya's marriage

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday set aside the Kerala high court (HC) order that had annulled alleged 'love jihad' victim Hadiya aka Akhila's marriage with her husband Shafin Jahan.

Jahan had challenged the HC order, which had cancelled the marriage and sent Hadiya to her parents' custody.

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".

She said that Jahan had no role in her conversion and that he had come into her life only after she embraced Islam.

"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.

(With inputs from agencies)