The Kerala High Court on Friday directed the State government to respond to a petition seeking to entrust the investigation into the case of an Arab marrying a minor Muslim girl residing in an orphanage in Malappuram with a superior police officer.
The petition was moved by the mother of the minor girl. The case related to a United Arab Emirates (UAE) national Jasem Mohammed Abdul Karim Abdulahmed, 28, marrying a 17-year-old girl from an orphanage on June 13. He left the country on July 1 and divorced her through triple talaq over the phone.
The petition also sought a directive to extradite the accused Arab national.
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The petitioner said that her daughter was pursuing her studies staying in the orphanage. Immediately after completion of her Plus Two course, the coordinators of the Yatheemkhana (orphanage) forced her minor daughter to marry the Arab national and forced to sign many blank papers. Though a crime was registered as early as August 26, the police had not taken any steps to arrest the accused who escaped to his nation. No steps had been taken to extradite him.
Similar such marriage took palace at the same orphanage. She had already submitted representation to the District Collector. In fact, the Yatheemkhana people had cheated the petitioner and her daughter by compelling her to marry a foreigner, knowing that she was a minor.
She also gave representation to the Malappuram District Police Chief pleading to take steps for extraditing the accused. However, no steps had been taken to extradite him.
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GO set aside
The Kerala High Court, on Thursday, set aside a government order (GO) allowing nominated members in the apex body of cooperative societies to continue as its office-bearers till the end of their tenure after exempting them from a provision in the Kerala Cooperative Society (Amendment) Act, 2013.
Consequently, Justice Vinod Chandran ordered Joy Thomas and N. Sudarsanan, president and vice-president, respectively, of the Kerala State Cooperative Consumer Federation Ltd. to vacate their office since their nomination ceased to exist after the quashing of the government order. Consumerfed is an apex body of consumer cooperatives.
Regulate crowd
A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Friday directed the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) to instruct the security guards deployed at Sabarimala Sopanam to regulate devotees who enter the places near the Sopanam and the sanctum sanctorum for receiving Prasadam and Darsan.
The Bench comprising Justice T.R. Ramachandran Nair and Justice B. Kemal Pasha issued the directive when a petition complaining about the restriction imposed by the TDB on devotees receiving Prasadam from Tantri or Santhis at the Sopanam in Sabarimala came up.