An aerial view of the Kuala Lumpur High Court April 23, 2020. — Picture by Hari Anggara
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 21 — Hindu mother Loh Siew Hong can now finally reunite with her children after the High Court today granted her a writ of habeas corpus for an immediate release of her three children from alleged unlawful detention.
In delivering his decision and allowing Loh’s application, Justice Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah said a December 2019 High Court interim ex-parte order and a March 2021 High Court final order which granted sole custody and full care of her children were still valid and enforceable.
“The court orders should not be treated punitively. I allow the application as per enclosure one (writ of habeas corpus),” he said after a 45-minutes recess following submissions from parties.
Upon delivery of Sequerah’s decision, Loh could be seen breaking down in tears and had to be consoled by her lawyers.
A habeas corpus is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person.
Loh filed the application through a notice of motion in the High Court on February 13, naming Nazirah Nanthakumari Abdullah, a senior preacher at the Hidayah CentreFoundation and parties currently detaining her three children as the first and second respondents.
Earlier, Lawyer Srimurugan Alagan who represented Loh, argued the predicament his client faced in being unable to meet with her children despite being their biological mother and a March 2021 High Court order which granted her full custody of them.
“This is a mother in distress. At this moment, she cannot go even one centimetre to her children. It is pure inhuman treatment,” he said, noting that the children were currently present in an adjacent witness room in court.
In reply, lawyer Aidil Khalid who is appearing for Nazirah, submitted that the application was academic since the children were no longer in her custody as they were now under the care of the Welfare Department to which Loh had previously consented to their entrustment.
Loh’s children were taken away from her in 2019 while she was hospitalised with injuries she claimed were inflicted by her former husband, Nagashwaran Muniandy, who has since converted to Islam and then secretly converted the couple’s children.
In December 2019, she obtained interim custody of her children pending her divorce, but her court case was delayed when the country went into Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020; she finally obtained an order granting her full and sole custody in March 2021.
MORE TO COME