A family’s anguish should not be reduced to a public spectacle or a reality show, father of Akhila, aka Hadiya, beseeched the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Akhila’s conversion to Islam and subsequent marriage to a Muslim man in Kerala had caused ripples across the nation. She is scheduled to be personally present before a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on November 27 to testify whether she converted under duress or of her own free will.
Asokan K.M. has filed an application requesting the apex court to interact with his daughter privately, in an in-camera session, and not in the open court. He said members of the “extremist” Popular Front of India was behind his daughter’s conversion and marriage.
“A family's anguish and misery caused by the acts of an extremist organisation should not be reduced to a public spectacle or a reality show,” Mr. Asokan, represented by advocate Madhavi Divan, pleaded in the court.
The father apprehended that Akhila would have to answer probing questions of a “highly private” nature. A public questioning would not only be mentally disturbing to his daughter but would also be unsettling for the family.
Mr. Asokan invoked the recent judgment of a nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court which upheld the right to privacy as a fundamental right under the Constitution. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, one of the three judges who will hear Akhila on November 27, was the author of the majority verdict in the privacy case. “In-camera proceedings are ordered in a range of situations which involve personal matters, family matters and also where there is security concern or sensitivity,” the plea said.
Mr. Asokan said the woman who “took control” of his daughter is a PFI member called Sainaba A.S. He has asked the Supreme Court to summon her and question her about the “widespread and organised network of radicalised elements which has developed a deceptive apparatus of conversion centres.
