The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to adjourn Thursday’s hearing in the Kerala conversion case. Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra dismissed the plea of Ashokan, Hadiya’s father, to postpone the hearing.

Hadiya (pictured above), whose conversion from Hinduism to Islam and marriage to a Muslim man set off a political and legal maelstrom, had filed an affidavit before the court on Tuesday, seeking permission to live with her husband Shafin Jahan. Hadiya told the court that she had embraced Islam after studying the religion and married Jahan out of her own free will.

Ashokan had approached the Kerala High Court in January 2017, claiming that Muslim organisations planned to force Hadiya to join the Islamic State group, and that Shafin Jahan was involved in terrorist activities. The court annulled Hadiya’s marriage to Jahan in May 2017 and sent her to live with her parents. However, in August 2017 her husband moved the Supreme Court, which then observed that a woman’s consent as an adult is the most important aspect to consider in a case. In January this year, the Supreme Court had questioned the high court’s judgment and said that it cannot delve into the marital status of the woman as she was an adult.