A Malaysian court on Monday dismissed an appeal by a Muslim-convert father against a lower court ruling that granted custody of his three children, whom he had converted to Islam, to his former wife, an ethnic Indian Hindu.

A three-member Malaysian Court of Appeal panel led by Justice Zaharah Ibrahim dismissed with costs the application by ethnic Indian Muhammad Ridzuan Abdullah or K Patmanathan as he was known before he converted to Islam, for an extension of time to file in the records of appeal.

The panel unanimously rejected Ridzuan's application with the judge saying "there is no appeal before us."

In March 2010, the Ipoh High Court granted the Hindu woman Indira Gandhi the custody of Tevi Darsiny (Ummu Salamah), 15, Karan Dinish (Abu Bakar), 14 and Prasana Diksa (Ummu Habibah), 4, but allowed Ridzuan to visit his children once a week.

The court ordered that the youngest child Prasana Diksa, who was with Ridzuan, be returned to Indira and the other two children who were with Indira, remain in the mother's custody.

Ridzuan, 43, embraced Islam in April 2009 and subsequently converted his children to Islam without his wife's consent.

The same month his wife obtained an interim order from the Ipoh High Court for temporary custody of her kids.

Ridzuan then obtained a court order from the Islamic Shariah Court giving him custody of the children.

Indira's lawyer M Kulasegaran said until today their attempts to locate Ridzuan and the youngest child were unsuccessful.