The Kerala State committee of the Islamist outfit, Popular Front of India (PFI), had spent nearly Rs 1 crore on the sensational case pertaining to the marriage of Hadiya, 25-year-old Hindu woman Akhila who converted to Islam in 2015, with Muslim youth Shaffin Jahan in the Supreme Court.
According to the organization, it had spent a total of Rs 99,52,324 for fighting the case for Shaffin, who had approached the apex court challenging a Kerala High Court order of May 24, 2017 annulling Hadiya’s marriage with him. Shaffin had won the legal war on March 8 with the Supreme Court setting aside the High Court order.
It was the Islamist outfit which had mobilised the money to meet the entire expenses of Shaffin’s legal battle in the apex court. Shaffin and Hadiya, presently doing her homeopathy medical course at a college in Salem, Tamil Nadu, had visited the PFI’s State headquarters in Kozhikode two days after the apex court issued its order in order to thank the outfit’s leaders for their help.
According to the PFI’s own calculations, it had paid as fees Rs 93,85,000 to the four senior lawyers – Kapil Sibal, Dushyant Dave, Indira Jaising and Marzook Bafaki – who had appeared in the Supreme Court for Shaffin Jahan. It had spent Rs 50,000 to the office of lawyer Haris Beeran for paper works and travel expenses in connections with the case totaled Rs 5,17,324.
Sibal had appeared in the Supreme Court for arguing Shaffin’s case seven times while Dave and Jaising appeared three times and four times respectively and Bafaki appeared once. Apart from these senior lawyers, advocates Haris Beeran, KP Muhammad Sherrif and KC Nazeer had rendered their services to Shaffin free of cost, the Popular Front said.
The PFI had held a State-wide drive in October last for mobilizing funds to meet the expenses of the Hadiya-Shaffin marriage case and they had been able to collect Rs 80,40,405 through this. Adding the money received through a bank account, the funds collected came to Rs 81,61,245 and the remaining amount was taken from the outfit’s working funds, according to the PFI.
A section of the Kerala society has all the way been alleging that the PFI has been meeting the expenses of Shaffin’s case but the outfit’s leadership said they were not worried about such charges. “We have been support them. We will continue to support them because this is a matter of human rights,” said a senior PFI leader. A Sangh Pariwar functionary said that their charge against Shaffin Jahan and the PFI had now been justified with the Islamist outfit releasing details of the money they spent for the case. “We have been saying from the very beginning of this controversy that Shaffin Jahan is an activist of the PFI. They have admitted this effectively now,” he said.
Hindu woman Akhila had embraced Islam and assumed the name of Hadiya in 2015 when she was doing her Homeopathy medicine course in Salem. She married Shaffin on December 19, 2016. The legal battle started with her father KM Asokan, a former Indian Army soldier, approaching the Kerala High Court with a Habeas Corpus petition.
The High Court annulled the marriage and entrusted Hadiya’s custody with Asokan on May 24 last year. Shaffin then moved the Supreme Court on the basis of which it scrapped the High Court order on March 8. Asokan, who accuses Shaffin of having extremist connections, has vowed to continue his legal battle.
