A mother and her four children failed in their appeal to quash the National Registration Department's (NRD) decision of rejecting their bid to change their names and remove the word ‘Islam’ from their identity cards.

The five were Jamilah Jan Vasanthegokelam, 55, her son from her first marriage, Mohd Sharif Abdullah, 35, and three sons from her second marriage - Mohd Jeffrey a/l Mohd Baser, 32, Mohd Jass a/l Mohd Baser, 28, and Mohd Naser a/l Mohd Baser, 22.

A three-member bench chaired by Justice Mohd Zawawi Salleh ruled that the NRD's decision not to change their names and religion in their identity cards was correct in law.

He said the NRD's decision could not be categorised as perverse, unreasonable, irrational and illegal, which warranted the Court of Appeal's intervention.

"The applicants have identified themselves as being Indian Muslim and professing the religion of Islam," said Justice Mohd Zawawi, who presided on the panel with Justice P Nalini, and Abdul Rahman Sebli.

Justice Mohd Zawawi said the applicants' contention that the religion was mistakenly stated in the official record, was not supported by any cogent evidence.

The panel unanimously dismissed their appeal and upheld the Feb 10, 2015, High Court's dismissal of the family's judicial review application which was filed to challenge the NRD's decision of rejecting their application to change their names and removal of the word ‘Islam’ from the identity cards.

They had named the NRD's director-general, Home Ministry, and the government of Malaysia in the judicial review.

The court also ordered them to pay RM5,000 in legal costs for the proceedings at the Court of Appeal and High Court.

Jamilah Jan's counsel Robin Lim submitted in the court that her second husband Mohd Baser a/l Kalakan took her to the NRD in 1983 to change her name to Jamilah Jan Vasanthegokelam after he told her that the change of her name was to avoid any complication that the couple might encounter when they applied for the birth certificate of their second child because her husband's name sounded like a Muslim name.

However, senior federal counsel Mazlifah Ayob, representing the respondents, said Jamilah had held the identity card bearing her Muslim name for about 30 years and her MyKad which was issued to her in 2003 carried the word ‘Islam’.

She said the NRD record also showed that Mohd Baser, who had since passed away, was a Malaysian citizen professing Islam.

The family was represented by counsel Robin Lim and S Nithiyawathi.

- Bernama