Lawyer Arham Rahimy Hariri, who is representing the mother whose identity has not been disclosed, said a motion to obtain leave from the apex court was filed yesterday.

He said the applicant had filed three questions of law, one of which was whether Article 12(4) of the Federal Constitution had been erroneously relied upon and/or applied in the case of Indira Gandhi Mutho v Pengarah Jabatan Agama Islam Perak & Ors.

Article 12 (4) states that the religion of a person under the age of 18 shall be decided by his parent or guardian.

Under Section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964, the Federal Court would proceed to hear the merit of the appeal only if an applicant succeeds in showing that the legal or constitutional questions posed are novel and of public advantage.

On Oct 27, the Court of Appeal held the High Court was right to allow a father of Buddhist faith to quash the unilateral conversion of his children to Islam by their mother.

Judge Mohamad Zabidin Diah said the appeals court was bound by the 2018 Federal Court decision in the case of kindergarten teacher M Indira Gandhi, which held that a spouse of a civil marriage who embraced Islam cannot unilaterally convert their children.

The other judges who sat in with Zabidin were S Nantha Balan and Nordin Hassan.

In this case, the father filed a legal challenge in 2016, seeking to quash the unilateral conversion of his two children to Islam.

He also sought a declaration that the children’s certificates of conversion to Islam were null and void, and that they were unlawfully converted.

He claimed that his former wife had converted the children with the intention of obtaining custody of them.

The woman converted to Islam in December 2015 while she and her former husband were in the midst of a divorce.

She converted the children at the Federal Territories Islamic religious department in May 2016.

Another Court of Appeal bench had also ordered that the father be given custody of the children.