Supreme Court of India

NEW DELHI: Bringing back memories of the Hadiya case, a 33-year-old Muslim man, who converted to Hinduism to marry a 23-year-old Hindu 'Jain' girl in Raipur , knocked on the Supreme Court's door on Friday, alleging that her parents and a Hindu right-wing group had forcibly separated them.

Petitioner Md Ibrahim Siddhiqui, aka Aryan Arya, through counsel Nikhil Nayyar, told the court that the girl wanted to live with him but her parents took her away despite the petitioner converting. "The Supreme Court can seek her production and talk to her about her free will," he said.

The court ordered the SP of Dhamtari, where the girl stays, to produce her before it on August 27. "If the girl doesn't support your plea, it's the end of the petition," the SC warned.

The petitioner said he had known the girl for five years and was in love for the past two-three years. In January, the girl joined a professional school in Raipur. When they decided to get married, the man converted to Hinduism on February 23 and adopted the name Aryan Arya. Post-conversion, they got married at the Arya Samaj temple in Raipur on February 25 as per Hindu rites and customs. However, the girl kept the marriage a secret from her family and awaited a conducive time to disclose it to them.

The marriage was registered on March 22 and the Raipur Municipal Corporation issued a marriage certificate on April 17. In June, the girl's parents came to know about the marriage. As the couple suspected that her parents would not reconcile to the marriage because of the petitioner's earlier faith, they planned that she would move to her husband's home without informing her parents.

The girl left home on June 30 but was caught by a policewoman who took her to the police station and from there to a Nari Niketan. The petitioner claimed that because of her influential father, the police recorded a false statement that she wanted to go home with her parents and handed over her custody to them. He said he was facing threats to his life from a Hindu right-wing group since then.

The petitioner told a bench of a bench of CJI Dipak Misra and Justice D Y Chandrachud that he approached the police but to no avail. He then moved the Chhattisgarh HC bench in Bilaspur.

The HC ordered the girl's production. After a delay of nearly 15 days, she was produced before the HC bench. The petitioner claimed that during the hearing before the HC, the girl repeatedly said she had married out of her own volition and she wanted to live with her husband.

"Her parents cried in the court and her mother even hit her inside the courtroom in front of the judges and said she would consume poison and commit suicide and also kill her. Moved by the parents' emotions and despite her express wish to go with her husband, the HC said it could not direct her to live with her husband," the petitioner said, adding the HC passed the order in violation of the clear mandate in Safin Jahan vs K M Asokan (Hadiya case) that a girl after attaining majority could choose her life partner.

