Homemaker S Banggarma will file an application within a week, for a court order to nullify her conversion to Islam when she was seven and living in a welfare home.

Her lawyer Gooi Hsiao Leung said the action will be based on Article 12.4 of the federal constitution and Section 80 of the Penang Administration of Islamic Affairs Enactment 1993.

“The constitution prohibits conversion of minors to any religion without parental or guardian consent,” he told Malaysiakini today.

“The Penang Islamic statute stipulates that anyone below the age of 18 shall not be converted to Islam without the consent of his or her parents.”

NONE Banggarma, whose Muslim name is Siti Hasnah Vangarama Abdullah, lives in Tanjung Piandang, Perak, with her fisherman husband S Sockalingam and their two children - Kanagaraj, eight, and Hisyanthini, two.

However, she has been unable to register her marriage, conducted according to Hindu rites.

Last month, she claimed that she was converted unwittingly on Dec 28, 1989 by the Penang welfare department.

However, Welfare Department director-general Meme Zainal Rashid countered that Banggarma was converted on Nov 30, 1983 in Rompin, Pahang, with parental consent. She was a year old at the time.

NONE Gooi (left) then wrote to the department, demanding documentary proof of the claim as well as of the court order obtained under the 1947 Juveline Courts Act,to place Banggarma in Rumah Kanak Kanak Taman Bakti in Kepala Batas.

Banggarma, 27, disputed Meme’s version of events, insisting that her parents, plantation worker B Subramaniam and Latchumy Ramadu - both Hindus - had not converted her to Islam.

However, Penang Islamic Religious Council president Shabudin Yahaya backed Meme, saying this was confirmed by the council’s checks, and that the conversion at the welfare home was merely to “reconfirm Banggarma’s conversion”.

‘Discrepancies in documents’

Gooi said the department had replied recently, enclosing several documents to substantiate its claim.

“But close perusal of the documents shows inconsistencies and discrepancies on many legal issues. These issues needed to be addressed by the civil court,” he said, without disclosing details.

He said Banggarma’s case is a civil matter because it involves the unconstitutional and unlawful conversion of a minor to Islam.

"This is a case of a person being converted involuntarily and unwittingly to Islam. It is not a case of a voluntary convert seeking a court order to renounce Islam,” he noted.