The widow of Everest climber sergeant M Moorthy has lost in her final legal redress to obtain a declaration that her late husband was still a Hindu prior to his death five years ago and that he be accorded a burial according to Hindu rites.

Chief Judge of Malaya Arifin Zakaria, leading a three-man Federal Court panel, unanimously denied S Kaliammal leave to appeal against the High Court's refusal to entertain her application to determine the religious status of her late husband on the grounds that the matter was under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Syariah Court.  

Moorthy, whose Muslim name was Mohamad Abdullah, was said to have converted to Islam prior to his death on Dec 20, 2005, without informing his family.

NONE Arifin said Kaliammal, 35, did not meet the threshold requirement of Section 96 (a) of the Courts of Judicature Act - being that the question of law posed for the Federal Court's determination was of a novel one and that its decision would be to public advantage.

With the dismissal of her leave application, the ruling of the appellate court that the Syariah Court was the competent authority to decide the religious status of Muslims, and those whose conversion was disputed, is upheld.

In dismissing Kaliammal's appeal on Aug 20 last year, the appellate court, also held that a non-Muslim challenging a conversion could appear in the Syariah Court to set aside any order.

Kaliammal filed an application on Dec 21, 2005, seeking the High Court to grant her a declaration that Moorthy was a Hindu.

Controversial burial

Moorthy was buried on Dec 28, 2005 at the Taman Ibukota Muslim Cemetery in Gombak, Selangor, after the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Religious Council obtained an ex-parte order from the Syariah Court stating that Moorthy had embraced Islam prior to his death.

NONE Moorthy ( right ) became paralysed from the waist down after a fall during training at the Sungai Udang Camp in Malacca on Aug 14, 1998 and was confined to a wheelchair. He went into a coma following a fall from the wheelchair and died at the Kuala Lumpur Hospital's intensive care unit.

In today's proceedings, lawyer M Manoharan, representing Kaliammal, sought the court to determine a question of law on whether the civil courts were qualified and of competent jurisdiction to determine the religious status of a person and in particular on whether the person was a Muslim or not.

    

Senior federal counsel Mahamed Naser Disa (rpt) Mahamed Naser Disa, appearing for the director of Kuala Lumpur Hospital and the government of Malaysia, submitted that the issue on the court's jurisdiction was well established principles of law which did not require any further argument in the Federal Court.

He said the court (Federal Court) had in a number of cases declared that the Syariah Court was the proper forum to decide on issues relating to one's conversion to Islam.

- Bernama