Kerala Love Jihad: Hadiya case adjourned after lawyer says NIA probe is political

The Supreme Court today adjourned the hearing in the Kerala Love Jihad case till October 30 following heated arguments between the lawyers of the two sides.

Counsel for the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Maninder Singh (the Additional Solicitor General) and Hadiya's husband Shefin Jahan's lawyer Dushyant Dave had a heated exchange in the Supreme Court when the matter came up for hearing today.

Dushyant Dave told the court that the NIA was being used for political purposes in the case. "The NIA has no business in this case," Dave told the Supreme Court. The Kerala government had made the same submission before the Supreme Court last week.

Dave went to claim that "Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and BJP president Amit Shah were using this case for a political propaganda." Dave further said, "This case is about liberty of a woman and it should not be politicised."

This led to exchange of heated arguments between Dave and Singh, who objected to BJP leaders' names being dragged in the case.

The Supreme Court, too, took strong objection to the statements of the counsel for Shefin Jahan. The Supreme Court bench said, "We take strong objection to the names of politicians being mentioned in the court. We will decide the case merely on legal points."

The bench further said that it would not allow "political speeches" to be made in the court. The Supreme Court reiterated that it will decide the matter purely on the question of law.

Earlier, the Supreme Court had on August 16 directed the NIA to probe whether there was a wider pattern of alleged 'love jihad' in the case in which the Hindu woman converted to Islam and later married Shefin Jahan, a Kerala Muslim man.

The Kerala High Court had, in May this year, annulled the marriage sending the woman to her parents' custody. Shefin Jahan, then, approached the Supreme Court challenging the high court judgment.

Jahan claimed in his plea that Hadiya had converted several months before their marriage, which was finalised through a matrimonial site.

Hadiya's father KM Ashokan had last year approached the Kerala High Court seeking his daughter's custody saying that she faced the danger of being trafficked to ISIS controlled areas including in Syria.