[UPDATED] Court defends ruling letting Buddhist man challenge kids’ conversion to Islam

KUALA LUMPUR – The Court of Appeal is standing by a high court ruling that favoured a Buddhist father’s move to quash his two children’s unilateral conversion to Islam by their mother.

Chairing the appellate panel, judge Datuk Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah said the decision was unanimous in dismissing the appeal filed by the Muslim-convert mother and a separate one by the Federal Territories Registrar of Muslim Converts.

“We are of the view that the high court judge as well as we, the appeal court, are bound by the Federal Court’s decision in the Indira Gandhi (case).

“As such, we find no appealable error made by the learned high court judge, therefore we find no merits in this appeal. Both the appeals are hereby dismissed. The decision of the high court judge is affirmed. And in this case we think the proper order is no order as to costs,” he was quoted as saying by Malay Mail when he delivered the panel’s decision.

The mother and the registrar were appealing to reinstate the Islamic conversion certificate of the two children – now aged 14 and 10. This was after the high court here in 2018 ruled in favour of the father applied in 2016 to invalidate the children’s conversion.

The mother embraced Islam in December 2015 while she and her former husband were in a divorce proceeding. She converted their children to Islam at the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Department in May 2016.

The couple’s divorce proceedings were finalised in April 2018.

The mother also lost custody of the children and was ordered to surrender them to their father in September 2018 by the Court of Appeal.

In 2017, M. Indira Gandhi succeeded in annulling the conversion of her three children to Islam by her former husband Muhammad Riduan Abdullah, who is a Muslim convert. – The Vibes, October 27, 2021