PERLIS has lost its final bid to reinstate the religious status of Loh Siew Hong's three children as Muslims following the Federal Court's dismissal of its application to review the case today.
A three-person bench chaired by Chief Judge of Malaya Datuk Seri Hasnah Mohammed Hashim unanimously dismissed the state administration's bid for the panel to review its earlier ruling.
The Perlis government filed the review application with the Federal Court on Oct 30 last year.
It contended that the previous ruling had severely compromised their right to be heard and sought a rehearing of the leave to appeal the application.
Other members of the bench were judges Datuk Nordin Hassan and Datuk Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera.
The Perlis government filed the review application with the Federal Court on Oct 30 last year, requesting the court to set aside its earlier decision rejecting the leave to appeal applications filed by the state government and three other parties.
Loh previously challenged the children’s conversion in 2022, losing initially at the High Court but later winning at the Court of Appeal and Federal Court.
On May 14, 2024, the Federal Court reaffirmed the binding Indira Gandhi precedent requiring both parents’ consent for child conversions.
The Perlis state government then filed an application on October 29, 2024 to review the Federal Court’s decision.
Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, dismissed the leave application by the Perlis Islamic Religious and Malay Customs Council (MAIPs) and the Perlis government.
She ruled that the argument had already been addressed in a landmark 2018 decision regarding Indira Gandhi's unilaterally converted children.
On Jan 10, the appellate court allowed Loh's appeal against the High Court's decision which previously stated that there was no evidence indicating that her children had ceased practicing Islam while under her care.
Loh, 38, had appealed against the decision of the High Court on May 11, 2023, which dismissed her judicial review application to challenge the conversion of her three children to Islam by Nagahswaran without her consent.
The single mother, who filed the application on March 25, 2022, named the Perlis State Registrar of Converts, MAIPs, Perlis Mufti Datuk Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin and the Perlis government as respondents.
Loh sought a declaration that her three children are Hindus and Nagahswaran did not have the legal capacity to allow the Perlis State Registrar of Converts to register their children as converts without her consent.
She also sought a declaration that her children, as underaged children, did not have the legal capacity to convert to Islam without her consent.
She applied for a certiorari order to revoke the declaration of the conversion to Islam dated July 7, 2020, issued by the Perlis Registrar of Converts in the name of her three children. - April 8, 2025
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