Top court throws out Hindu mother’s conversion challenge
Today’s 5-0 ruling effectively deals a hard blow to the battle to end one-sided religious conversions, which has caused a deep rift in this multicultural and secular nation but where Islam is recognised as the official creed.
The panel of five of the nation’s most senior judges, led by Chief Justice Tun Zaki Azmi, ruled that S. Shamala must return to the country if she wants the court’s protection.
The 38-year-old mother fled the country with her two sons in 2004. Their current location is unknown.
The Federal Court said it cannot adopt a “fugitive doctrine of heads I win, tails you lose” in deciding the basic rights for either parent.
“Parties must have equal footing and not unfair representation,” Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Richard Malanjum said in his judgment.
The court noted that Shamala’s estranged husband, anaesthetist Dr Muhammad Ridwan Mogarajah (alias Jeyaganesh C. Mogarajah), also had rights as the father.
Both parents are in a bitter fight to gain custody over Saktiwaran and Theivaswaran, now aged 11 and nine respectively, and to be allowed to raise them in their respective religions.
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