NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has established that Hadiya's marriage with husband Shafin Jahan is legal, valid, and a relationship formed of her free will. The statement has consequently overturned an earlier order of Kerala High Court which had canceled the marriage deeming it not legal. A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud said it was restoring Hadiya and Jahan's marriage. It said it had interacted with the former and found that she had exercised her consent in getting married.
“Marriage and intimacy of personal relationships are core of plurality in India. We can't let state or others make inroads into this extremely personal space,” the court said. Following the order, the couple will be deemed legally married and can live as a couple without being harassed by any state agency. Earlier this week, Hadiya's father KM Asokan told the SC that he made efforts to prevent her from being transported to “extremist-controlled territories” of Syria, or be used as a “sex slave or a human bomb”. He said his daughter was a “vulnerable adult” and she “abjectly surrendered herself to complete strangers who adopted her into their fold, offering her shelter and protection and further imparted religious indoctrination in an isolated environment.”
However, Hadiya spoke to the court and said she embraced Islam of her own free will and wanted to continue living as a Muslim. She said she married of her own volition and sought the court's permission to “live as his wife”. “I hereby submit that I embraced the faith/religion of Islam on my choice as per my conscience and on my own free will after studying Islam and thereafter I married a person, namely Shafin Jahan, from the same faith as per my choice and on my own free will. However, despite the fact that I submitted repeatedly before the Kerala High Court that I made the above choices on my own free will, the HC did not heed to my submissions,” Hadiya said.
