AMN / New Delhi
The Supreme Court today allowed the National Investigating Agency (NIA) to probe all the aspects, except Hadiya’s marriage to Shafin Jahan.
Apex court said that NIA to continue its probe into any criminality in the marriage of Hadiya, a Hindu woman from Kerala who converted to Islam, with Shafin Jahan but not intrude into their marriage.
A three-judge bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra and also comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, said, the NIA, the probe agency in the Kerala love case, could not go into the marital status of Hadiya, but it would go into other aspects of the probe.
“We can’t go into the marriage. Whether the person she is married to is good human being or a bad human” — the bench observed, noting that Hadiya is 24 years old and has made an independent decision and choice to marry.
Making it clear that the National Investigation Agency has to stay away from the marriage of Hadiya with Shafin Jahan, the court observed that the agency could probe into “all other aspects except her marriage”.
Hadiya was set-free and allowed to pursue her studies in the last hearing of the matter as she had told the court that she wanted to pursue her internship in the Sivaraj Homoeopathic College in Salem in Tamil Nadu.
The court will hold the next hearing on February 22 when it will examine the validity of the Kerala High Court’s order annulling her marriage with Shafin Jahan.
Senior Supreme Court lawyer, Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioner, Shefin Jahan, asked for an investigation under the supervision of a retired judge as ordered by the previous bench of the apex court.
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