Justice Azizah Nawawi, in a brief judgment, said the court was bound to revoke the children’s conversion to Islam based on the ruling on kindergarten teacher M Indira Gandhi earlier this year.

Indira had succeeded in her bid to annul the conversion of her three children to Islam by her former husband, a Muslim convert.

Azizah made no order to costs in the case today.

The court also dismissed a stay bid by Sulaiman Abdullah, the lawyer for the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Department’s (Jawi) registrar for new converts, to halt the annulment of the children’s conversion certificates.

“I’m sorry, there is no legal basis for a stay,” Azizah said.

The father in question 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 his former wife had converted the children to Islam with the intention of getting 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.

The divorce proceedings were finalised in April this year.

The mother initially obtained custody of the children but was ordered to surrender them to their father last month by the Court of Appeal.

Speaking to reporters outside the court, lawyer Zulkifli Che Yong, who is appearing for the Jawi muallaf registrar, and the mother’s lawyer, Rohani Ibrahim, said they would be appealing against the decision to revoke the children’s conversion to Islam.

Rohani also said the mother had filed an application for leave to appeal to the Federal Court on losing her custody rights over the children.

“We posed questions related to the issue of unilateral conversion that caused her to lose custody to the Federal Court for our leave application,” she said.