NEW DELHI (TIP): The Supreme Court (SC) on March 8 restored the marriage between Akhila aka Hadiya and Shafin Jahan – a couple at the centre of a ‘love jihad’ row – but made it clear that the NIA can continue with its probe to find out if any criminality was involved in the wedlock.

Setting aside the May 24, 2017 judgment of the Kerala HC which quashed the marriage, a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said Hadiya is “free to pursue her future endeavors according to law” and no court can interfere in the marriage between two consenting adults.

But the bench, which took the NIA probe report into record, added: “We clarify that the investigations in respect of any matter of criminality may continue in accordance with law.”

The judges, acting on a petition filed by Jahan challenging the HC order, said they were reviving the marriage convinced after the interaction with Hadiya on November 27 last year in open courtroom during which she admitted the marriage and indicated that she had exercised her free consent.

The Kerala HC had observed that Hadiya seemed to be mentally indoctrinated and needed her parents’ involvement in order to make such an important decision.

It also found merit in her father KM Asokan’s statement that his daughter had been recruited by Islamic State’s mission in Syria and Jahan was “only a stooge who had been assigned to play the role of going through a marriage ceremony”.

The father and the NIA raised this argument in the SC too. Significantly, the HC had also directed ‘comprehensive’ investigation into cases of ‘love jihad’ and has incidents of forced conversion probed thoroughly.

Asokan and NIA vehemently argued that the marriage was part of a well-oiled machinery prevailing in Kerala to indoctrinate vulnerable youth to embrace Islam and lure them away to countries like Syria but the bench was not inclined to accept the argument and said “when two consenting adults marry we cannot get into correctness, justness.. its not fair”.

“Shafin Jahan is a radicalised man, a stooge of the ISIS who was trying to wean away Hadiya to Syria under the pretext of marriage which is only a guise to take her away from the jurisdiction of her parents and any court,” Shyam Diwan, senior advocate who appeared for Asokan told the SC.

The order also came on a day when Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh for NIA said that it had issued look-out circulars for two witnesses F Musthafa and S Shahana who “initiated” Hadiya into Islam.

Singh urged the court not to take the case lightly saying it was “not a one-off case, there was a common pattern and modus operandi for luring vulnerable girls to convert to Islam by feigning love and the same group of people, who have been identified by the NIA, was behind it”.

The NIA referred to “psychological kidnapping” too and said that an indoctrinated person like Hadiya may be incapable of giving free consent. Singh said: “Investigation is almost complete except two persons who left abroad.

The CJI retorted: “you can continue with your investigation, lodge FIRs, make arrests, do whatever you want . But we cannot touch the marriage. If the marriage is a disguise to commit an offence then you can proceed against the offender”.