{"id":253,"date":"2007-05-23T15:00:08","date_gmt":"2007-05-23T07:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/borninmalaysia\/2007\/05\/23\/moorthys-conversion-case-update\/"},"modified":"2007-05-24T18:39:54","modified_gmt":"2007-05-24T10:39:54","slug":"moorthys-conversion-case-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/borninmalaysia\/2007\/05\/23\/moorthys-conversion-case-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Moorthy&#8217;s conversion case &#8211; update"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Appeal by Moorthy&#8217;s widow set for Dec 12 <\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com.my\/news\/story.asp?file=\/2007\/5\/23\/nation\/17808578&amp;sec=nation\">Source<\/a><\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><b>BY RAPHAEL WONG<\/b><\/div>\n<p>PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has fixed Dec 12 to hear the appeal of Sjn M. Moorthy&#39;s widow against a High Court&#39;s decision not to disturb the declaration that the Everest climber was a Muslim because the matter was under the jurisdiction of the Syariah Court.&nbsp;  <\/p>\n<p>The date was fixed when the appeal of the widow M. Kaliammal came up before Court of Appeal registrar Hasnah Datuk Mohd Hashim in chambers yesterday.&nbsp;  <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It is learnt that the appeal would be heard before a different panel as the previous quorum comprising Court of Appeal judges Justices Mokhtar Sidin, Denis Ong and Abdul Aziz Mohamad would not be able to continue hearing the matter.&nbsp;  <\/p>\n<p>Justices Ong and Mokhtar will retire in June and September respectively while Justice Abdul Aziz has been elevated to the Federal Court.&nbsp;  <\/p>\n<div>On June 20 last year, the three-man bench ordered parties involved in the appeal to hand in written submissions on whether the civil or syariah courts have the jurisdiction to determine the religious status of an individual for them to make a decision in September.&nbsp; <\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>and the NST version&#8230;<\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div>\n<h5><b>Moorthy Conversion Case:<\/b> New panel to hear widow&#8217;s appeal<\/h5>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nst.com.my\/Current_News\/NST\/Wednesday\/National\/20070523075257\/Article\/index_html\">source<\/a><\/div>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p>PUTRAJAYA: It is back to the drawing board for a Hindu widow who is challenging the conversion of her husband to Islam. <\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"3\" cellpadding=\"0\" width=\"200\" align=\"right\">\n<tbody><\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>After 18 months of trying to seek legal redress over her dead husband&#8217;s religious status, the woman will have to go through the entire appeal process again.<\/p>\n<p>This is because the three Court of Appeal judges who had heard her case will no longer be on the bench. <\/p>\n<p>Judge Datuk Denis Ong Jiew Fook will retire next month followed by the presiding judge Datuk Mokhtar Sidin in September. <\/p>\n<p>The third member of the bench, Datuk Abdul Aziz Mohamad, was elevated to the Federal Court in July last year. <br \/>This would mean that factory worker S. Kaliammal will have to wait much longer for a decision on her appeal. <\/p>\n<p>The appeal hearing is now scheduled for the end of the year.<\/p>\n<p>Kaliammal&#8217;s case received wide media coverage as it involved the religious status of her husband, M. Moorthy, who was a member of the first Malaysian team to scale Mount Everest in 1997. <\/p>\n<p>He allegedly converted to Islam prior to his death on Dec 20, 2005, without informing his family. <\/p>\n<p>Kuala Lumpur Hospital authorities refused to release his body to his Hindu family. The couple has an 11-year-old daughter.  <\/p>\n<p>Kaliammal then filed an application the following day at the High Court, among others, seeking a declaration that Moorthy was a Hindu.<\/p>\n<p>She named the Kuala Lumpur Islamic Affairs Religious Council, the director of the Kuala Lumpur Hospital and the government as respondents. <\/p>\n<p>The following day, the council obtained an order from the Syariah Court that Moorthy had embraced Islam prior to his death and his body was released to the council for a Muslim burial.<\/p>\n<p>On Dec 29, 2005, the then High Court judge Mohd Raus Sharif ruled that Article 121(1A) of the Federal Constitution stated that the civil court had no jurisdiction on matters pertaining to Islam. <\/p>\n<p>Kaliammal then took her case to the Court of Appeal which sat on June 26, last year.<\/p>\n<p>The appellate court was to have delivered judgment in September last year after counsel were instructed to provide written submissions. <\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, however, Court of Appeal Registrar Hasnah Hashim fixed hearing on Dec 12 when the matter came up for case management.<\/p>\n<p>The case will be heard afresh before a new panel.<\/p>\n<p>Lawyer Sulaiman Abdullah, who is appearing for the council, informed Hasnah that he preferred to wait for the outcome of the Lina Joy appeal which is pending in the Federal Court as this would answer the question of jurisdiction. <\/p>\n<p>Counsel M. Manoharan, who is representing Kaliam-mal wanted an earlier date.<\/p>\n<p>Later, outside chambers, Manoharan urged Chief Justice Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim to expedite delivering the much-awaited judgment on the Lina Joy case.  <\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Appeal by Moorthy&#8217;s widow set for Dec 12 &nbsp; Source &nbsp; BY RAPHAEL WONG PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has fixed Dec 12 to hear the appeal of Sjn M. Moorthy&#39;s widow against a High Court&#39;s decision not to disturb the declaration that the Everest climber was a Muslim because the matter was under the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11],"tags":[92,24],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-borninmalaysia","category-indian","tag-conversion","tag-mic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}