An all-party parliamentary committee should be formed to tackle the issue of unilateral conversion of minors, said DAP national vice-chair M Kulasegaran.

The MP for Ipoh Barat urged this today after concluding that the cabinet committee set up to resolve the problem has been, as he claimed, “ineffective”.

The issue of unilateral conversion of children by an estranged or divorced parent reached a climax last Thursday when the Court of Appeal overturned an Ipoh High Court decision that quashed the conversion of the children of Indira Gandhi, a Hindu mother who resorted to the civil court as a remedy for her situation.

Kindergarten teacher Indira’s estranged husband, K Pathmanathan, had in 2009 converted all their three children, who were minors, to Islam without her knowledge or consent.

In 2013, the Ipoh High Court granted her application to have her children’s conversions quashed.

The matter was appealed and last week, a Court of Appeal panel, by a majority decision, overturned the High Court ruling on grounds that the conversion of her children was a matter that came under the jurisdiction of the Syariah Court.

Kulasegaran, who appeared for Indira in the matter, said the decision by the Court of Appeal renders moot the role of the cabinet committee whose set-up was suggested in 2009 when the issue of unilateral conversion of minors flared in the public arena.

“Cabinet minister Mohd Nazri Aziz said that the matter would come under the purview of a cabinet committee explicitly set up to resolve the issue,” recalled the Ipoh barrister.

“There was no news of their deliberations until after the last general elections on May 2013 when it announced that the committee would be steered by ministers Nancy Shukri, Jamil Khir Baharom and S Subramaniam, but to date there has been no news their recommendations,” he said.

“Now that the Court of Appeal has spoken and the issue remains as problematic and as contentious as when it first flared in the public domain, I propose that an all-party parliamentary committee be set up to resolve the matter once and for all,” opined Kulasegaran.

He said the cabinet committee has proven to be “ineffective” and the matter cannot be said to have been resolved by dint of the Court of Appeal ruling.

“Hence I propose we go back to the drawing board and get all-party parliamentary panel cracking on the issue,” he asserted.