Popular Front spent Rs 1 crore on legal battle over Hadiya’s marriage

Kozhikode, 31 Mar 2018 [Fik/News Sources]: In a bid to keep abreast the public of the expenditure incurred on the legal battle of Dr. Hadiya in the Supreme Court, which had attracted international attention, the Kerala state committee of the Popular Front of India (PFI) on Wednesday released a financial statement in this regard.

According to the financial statement, the Front had spent a total amount of Rs 93, 85,000 on fees for advocates who fought the case in Supreme Court. The young Hadiya, whose marriage after conversion to Islam had been a ‘sore point’ for the communal forces and they made an all-out effort to dub the marriage as “love jihad”.  Even they had succeeded in breaking the marriage as the Kerala High Court had annulled the marriage of Dr, Hadiya. After a dogged legal battle by hiring a battery of eminent lawyers of the country, the Supreme Court restored the marriage.

Facing some criticism over the expenses from some political quarter the in Kerala the Front finally issued a detailed statement of expenses incurred during the legal fight in the Supreme Court.

According to the statement Rs 93, 85,000 have been incurred as total fees for advocates with respect to their appearance before court during the conduct of the case. 5, 17,324 rupees was spent on travel expense and 50000 on the purpose of paper work in Adv. Haris Beeran’s Firm. Explicitly 99, 52,324 was the total expense including above mentioned expenses.”

Considering it as a noteworthy case the Front decided to fight the battle legally in Supreme Court and planned to take the services of senior most   advocates the Apex court. They mobilized their volunteers to get the fund through public collection to bear the unendurable expense, it said.

Front’s  volunteers collected Rs 80, 40,405 within 20 minutes after Friday prayers directly from the public from across the state on October 2017. A total sum of 81, 61,245 rupees has been received inclusive of bank acceptance. In addition to this, excess expenditure over income (shortfall) was coped from the working fund collection of Popular Front.

The statement said “Senior Lawyer Kapil Sipal had appeared for seven times, Dushyant Dave for three times, Indira Jaising for four times and Marsooq Baqafi who drafted the affidavit also presented for one time before the court on behalf of the petitioner.

Adv. Noor Muhammad and Pallavi Prathap have also appeared for this case in various occasions. Besides, the legal services of Adv. Haris Beeran, K.P Muhammed Shareef and K.C Naseer have been received for the case at free of cost.

Front leadership expressed the heartfelt thanks and gratitude to every persons and organizations that supported financially as well as morally in various stages of the case.

The statement was released after the meeting presided over by the State President Nasarudheen Elamaram, and attended by General Secretary CP Muhammed Basheer, Secretaries A.Abdul Sathar, PK Abdul Latheef, Committee members C Abdul Hameed and K Muhammed Ali and others.