Hadiya Marriage Case
Shafin Jahan v Ashokan K.M.
The Court assessed the allegation that Hadiya was deceived into marrying her husband Mr. Shafin Jahan and forcibly converted to Islam. The Court found that the allegation, which was made by her parents, was clearly false.
Decided
Parties
Petitioner: Shafin Jahan
Lawyers: Kapil Sibal; Indira Jaising; Pallavi Pratap
Case Details
Case Number: Crl.A 366/2018
Next Hearing:
Last Updated: October 25, 2021
Key Issues
Does the High Court have the power to annul the marriage of an adult under Article 226?
Case Description
On April 9th 2018, the Supreme Court delivered its judgment. There was two separate opinions:
- Chief Justice Dipak Misra’s majority opinion on behalf of himself and AM Khanwilkar
- Justice DY Chandrachud’s concurring opinion
Hadiya Jahan (originally Akhila Ashokan) converted to Islam during her medical studies in Coimbatore. She then met a Muslim man named Shafin Jahan and married him at the age of twenty-five.
When Akhila’s father, Mr. K.M. Ashokan, found out about the marriage, he filed a Writ Petition in the Kerala High Court. He alleged that Hadiya had been misled and forced to become a Muslim. He also alleged that Akhila’s husband had links to extremist Muslim organizations. Hadiya maintained throughout the High Court proceedings that her conversion to Islam as well as marriage to Shafin Jahan was of her own volition.
However, on May 24th 2017, High Court Justices Surendra Mohan Kuriakose and Abraham Mathew, annulled the marriage and called it a ‘sham’. Their judgment observed that ‘her [Hadiya’s] marriage being the most important decision in her life, can only be taken only with the active involvement of her parents’. The Justices granted Mr. Ashokan custody over Hadiya and ignored the fact that Hadiya, a legal adult, did not consent to parental custody.
Subsequently, Hadiya’s husband approached the Supreme Court to challenge the annulment. On March 8th 2018, the three-judge bench of Supreme Court set aside the annulment. On April 9th 2018, it delivered the judgment, holding that the Kerala High Court could not have used Article 226 to annul the marriage of an adult.
The Bench was initially headed by Chief Justice Khehar, who took the extraordinary step of ordering the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to investigate Hadiya’s marriage. CJI Khehar retired during the hearing on August 27th. Chief Justice Misra took over from him. CJI Misra, perhaps recognizing the problematic nature of the NIA investigation, never called for the NIA to present its report during the hearings. Furthermore, the NIA investigation finds no mention in the Court’s judgement.