FEDERAL COURT DELIVERS, BUT DID MOTHER S.DEEPA GET JUSTICE IN ILLEGAL ISLAM CONVERSION CASE?

(Click on pic for enlarged view).

The 5-man panel Federal Court justices must be congratulated for their decision yesterday confirming the supremacy of Civil Law in resolving civil marriage disputes and related conversion to Islam cases.

They did this in the case of S.Deepa vs ex-husband N.Viran aka Izwan Abdullah.

Their justices ruled that marriage annulments and ancillary orders following the conversion of one party to Islam cannot be made by the Syariah Court. Divorce and custody in civil marriages should be decided by the Civil Court.

But, the manner in which they went about awarding split custody of the children involved in the case, left a bitter taste in their mother, Deepa's, mouth. In their peculiar wisdom, their justices awarded custody of son Mithran (8) to his father, and daughter Sharmilla (11) to Deepa, after interviewing the children alone in chambers!

Now, really, what do 8 and 11-year old under-aged children know about religion or life, when manipulated by a father with ulterior motives? Especially, a father who broke Syariah laws and illegally converted his children to Islam without their mother's consent, and kidnapped them from their mother's home?

How could senior Federal Court judges who should know better, not realize how traumatized the children must have been? How could they expect such confused innocents to make any sensible choice, frightened as the must have been when confronted by five strange and imposing old men in black robes, no matter how sweet their words?

Let us look at the history of this case:

1. Deepa and Viran, both Hindus, were married under Hindu rites in 2003.

2. Viran filed for divorce in 2011 and converted to Islam in 2013.

3. Viran also had both his children converted to Islam without Deepa's consent, despite which the Syariah administration allowed the conversions to stand.

4. Deepa won back custody of her children in April 2014 at the Seremban High Court. (In May 2015 the court of Appeal affirmed the Seremban High Court decision).

5. Two days after the Seremban High Court decision, Viran kidnapped son Mithran from Deepa's home. Viran justified his criminal conduct by claiming that in 2012, the Syariah Court had granted him custody, even though his converting the children without the mother's consent was illegal.

6. Despite a court order, Police Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar astonishingly, refused to arrest Viran, claiming that there were two conflicting court orders and that "a father does not kidnap his child". He asked the parties to "settle the matter privately"!!

So, what we have here is a scurrilous man who illegally converted his under-aged children to Islam without their mother's consent, and then, when ordered by a valid and competent Civil Court to comply with its custody order, forcibly kidnapped a child from his family home.

More than that, the Syariah has taken a back-to-the-wall 'it's us or them' myopic attitude. Instead of annulling the illegal conversions, they have continued to flaunt it in the completely innocent mother's face. They may have relied on an earlier case of Islam conversion tussle involving yet another unfortunate Hindu mother, Indira Gandhi, where an idiotic judge ruled that 'parent' in law meant that on their own, either the father or mother in a civil marriage could convert their children to Islam. 

Of course that ignorant judge had not seemed to have been aware of the Constitution and its definitions section which says that any word in the singular includes its plural. In this case, the Syariah approved the children's conversion in their absence, and yet refused to back down when challenged on legal non-compliance!! CLICK HERE AND HERE for details of that travesty of justice.

The Cabinet was supposed to resolve those mistakes in law in black and white, but never got around to it.

So, while yesterday's decision by the Federal Court has gone a long way to settling the law on civil marriages and related Islam conversion cases, Deepa would be right in feeling that justice was not delivered in her particular case and circumstances:

1. The unilateral conversion of the children was illegal and did not comply with Syariah administration rules. Therefore, their justice should have ordered the conversions to be annulled as an administrative error, as affirmed by a judge at the Court of Appeal.

2. Custody of both children should have been awarded to the mother, Deepa. Who could ever trust a man who broke Syariah laws by converting his under-aged Hindu children to Islam unilaterally, broke civil laws ordering surrender of children's custody and terrorized the children by kidnapping them in front of their mother. In Malaysia, a conviction for kidnapping carries whipping and a life or death sentence! What moral and ethical lessons do the judges think the son will be learning from his criminal father? What kind of role model would he be to his son?

3. The judges ordered, on the application of Viran that, because of their split custody order, alimony payable by Viran to Deepa be reduce from $500 per month to $250 per month. Why? Who broke the marriage and who asked for split custody? Can a single mother bring up a child with just $250 a month? Which planet are our judges living in?

4. No action was recommended against Police Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar for refusing to comply with a court order to apprehend Viran and return custody of the children to Deepa. Is Khalid, who has a law degree, above the law? This looks like a cop out by the highest court in the land. CLICK HERE.

The impression we get is that the judges are afraid of putting the Syariah courts and its administration in its place in case "the natives get restless". But, it is this pussyfooting that is at the root of these conversion issue problems.

I have nothing bad to say about Islam nor do I wish to debate about Syariah laws.

All I demand is that our administrators and judges follow the Constitution with good intent and true justice - substance over form - in mind.

That scurrilous smug and sneering Viran's face-saving parting shot to Deepa - "I pray my former wife will have the revelation to embrace Islam" - tells all. CLICK HERE.

Viran is laughing all the way home, thinking he has got away with several serious criminal acts. Their justices may think that it was a fair compromise. The world probably thinks that tearing a son away from his natural and innocent mother is a crime against humanity akin to forced re-settlement of natives.

Innocent and victimized Malaysian Hindu mother Deepa did NOT go to the Federal Court looking for a compromise. She went there to ask for her Constitutional rights to be confirmed, enforced and protected! Instead, she had her guts yanked out. Their justices may have thought that somehow things got equalized when they split custody of the children. But, what really happened is as as though your house gets robbed, and when caught, the robber gets to keep half the loot. One party got more equalized than the other!

And here I ask the IGP two questions that many Malaysians would really like an answer to, but are afraid to ask openly:

1. Would you have refused to arrest Viran had he not converted to Islam?

2. Would you have refused to arrest Viran had it been a case where he had NOT converted to Islam and had kidnapped the son from a wife who had converted to Islam?

Donplaypuks® with the Constitution and religion, o' justices and IGP!