Hadiya's marital status can't be questioned: SC
New Delhi, Jan 23 (IBNS) : The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that the NIA’s probe into Kerala's Hadiya case will not affect the validity of her marriage to Shafin Jahan as the issue can't be clubbed with criminal laws, reports said.
"We cannot go into the validity of her marriage. How can we say marriage is not valid when she says she is married? She can choose independently," the court 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 bench, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said.
The case is about the marriage and alleged forced religious conversion of 24-year-old Haidya which has raised the allegation of 'Love Jihad."
The apex court observed that they cannot club or combine criminal law issues with the question of whether Hadiya’s marriage to Shafin Jahan is valid or not.
As a result, the NIA probe would make no difference to the status of Hadiya and Shafin’s marriage.
The NIA can investigate all other aspects except marriage, it said.
"Marriage has to be separate from criminal activity, otherwise we will be creating a bad precedent in law," the SC said.
The court decided to make Hadiya a party to the case to get her view on the marriage.
It observed that they only need Hadiya’s view on the marriage to decide whether or not it should be annulled.
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.
The two met through a matrimonial website affiliated to an organization, which the National Investigation Agency, believes is linked to terror.
Hadiya's parents refused to accept her marriage to Shafin Jahan, who returned from Oman recently, and they allege that she was being indoctrinated and will be taken to Syria. In May, on the family's petition, the Kerala High Court annulled Hadiya's marriage and ordered her to go back to her parents. Shafin Jahan had challenged the order in the Supreme Court, arguing that as an adult, she has the right to decide.
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