THE Court of Appeal today adjourned a unilateral conversion case of three children to Islam so as to wait for a decision for another similar case up for hearing at the Federal Court tomorrow. 

Previously, the High Court had struck out the Selangor Islamic Religious Council (MAIS) and state muallaf registry’s application to reinstate the conversion status of the three children. 

MAIS’ lawyer Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla told the court this morning that there will be a similar unilateral conversion case before the Federal Court tomorrow where the same questions of law will be raised. 

“I humbly request this hearing to be stood down until the Federal Court hears our leave application tomorrow,” the lawyer was quoted as saying. 

Lawyer Sa’adiah Din, representing the mother and three children, said they have no objection to the hearing being adjourned until the Federal Court disposed of the other case.

Judge Suraya Othman said the court will fix a new hearing date pending the apex court case. 

The other two judges who sat with Suraya were Azizah Nawawi and Hashim Hamzah. 

On March 2015, three children aged between eight and 13 were converted to Islam by their father at the Batu Muda Mosque in Gombak. 

The next day, the father registered their conversion at the Hidayah Centre Foundation, an entity under the state government. 

The mother, who is a non-Muslim, claimed that she was not consulted on the children’s conversion to Islam and alleged that they did not agree to embrace the religion. 

A suit was filed by the mother and the children against MAIS and the federal government. 

In December 2020, High Court judge Mohd Zaki Abdul Wahab ruled in favour of the mother and children’s application to quash the children’s conversion, citing the 2018 Federal Court decision in Indira Gandhi’s case. 

In tomorrow’s case, the Federal Court will hear MAIS’ bid to appeal to reinstate the conversion of five children – done by their father – to Islam. 

MAIS is seeking to appeal against a lower court’s ruling that granted a 33-year-old mother’s application to revoke the conversion of her five children to Islam, done unilaterally by her former husband. 

The former husband converted the children – aged between eight and 14 – in 2018, without the mother’s knowledge and consent. 

In allowing the mother’s application, High Court judge Tun Abd Majid Tun Hamzah also cited Indira’s case, saying that the Selangor enactment clearly stated that both father and mother must consent to their children’s conversion. – January 25, 2022.