Loh’s children to remain as Hindus

PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court has denied leave for the Perlis Islamic Religious and Malay Customs Council (MAIPs) and three others to appeal an appellate court’s decision to nullify the conversion of three children to Islam by their father without the mother’s consent.

A three-member panel of judges led by Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat dismissed the applications for leave to appeal by MAIPs, the Perlis State Registrar of Converts, Perlis Mufti Datuk Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin and the Perlis state government.

Following the dismissal of the leave applications by the top court, single mother Loh Siew Hong’s 16-year-old twin daughters and 13-year-old son remain Hindu.

In the decision, Justice Tengku Maimun, who sat with Justices Nallini Pathmanathan and Abu Bakar Jais, held that there was no reason to revisit the Federal Court’s decision in M. Indira Gandhi’s case.

In Indira Gandhi’s case, the Federal Court held that the consent of both parents must be obtained before minor children can be converted to other religions.

Justice Tengku Maimun also said the court was unable to accept that the Federal Court’s decision in Indira Gandhi’s case was only confined to the Federal Territories.

“The Federal Court judgment in Indira Gandhi’s case is binding throughout the nation,” she added, Bernama reported.

On the issue that the words “parents” and “parent” were used interchangeably in the Federal Constitution and not addressed in Indira Gandhi’s case, she said the issue was covered in Indira Gandhi’s case.

Justice Tengku Maimun also said both the High Court and Court of Appeal had made concurrent findings on the issue of whether there was a prescription of the Malay version of the Federal Constitution being the authoritative text.

Hence, she said, the court did not see why the issue had to be ventilated further in the Federal Court.

On Jan 10, the Court of Appeal declared that Loh’s three children are Hindus after allowing her appeal to overturn a High Court ruling.

The High Court in 2023 had dismissed Loh’s judicial review application to nullify the conversion of her three children to Islam.

Loh, 37, filed the judicial review application on March 25, 2022, naming the Perlis State Registrar of Converts, MAIPs, Mohd Asri and the Perlis government as respondents, seeking a declaration that her three children are Hindus and that her Muslim-convert ex-husband M. Nagahswaran, did not have the legal capacity to allow the registration of their children as converts without her consent.

The woman also sought a declaration that her three children, as children, do not have the legal capacity to convert to Islam without her consent.

She also sought a certiorari order to revoke the Declaration of Conversion to Islam, dated July 7, 2020, issued by the Registrar of Converts of Perlis in the name of her three children, and also other cards on their conversion to Islam issued by other parties and to prevent any party from issuing such a card.

The three children, who were placed under the care of the Social Welfare Department, were released to Loh on Feb 21, 2022, after the High Court allowed her habeas corpus application.

Loh was represented by a team of lawyers led by A. Srimurugan, MAIPs by lawyer Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla, while Perlis state legal adviser Mohd Radhi Abas acted for Perlis State Registrar of Converts, Mohd Asri and the Perlis government.