The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on January 2 a batch of petitions challenging controversial state laws regulating religious conversions due to interfaith marriage. The petitions filed by Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) were filed in late 2020, first challenging the Uttarakhand and UP laws, then amended in 2021 to also challenging similar laws filed by Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha is scheduled to hear the PILs filed by advocate Vishal Thakre and an ‘Citizens for Justice and Peace’.
The Supreme Court will also hear a plea by Muslim body ‘Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind’ which it had allowed last year to become a party to the petitions as it claimed a large number of Muslims are being harassed under these laws across the country.
As per the office report uploaded on the website of the Supreme Court, so far no reply has been filed by the Centre or any of the states which have been made parties to the litigation.
On February 17, 2021, the top court had permitted CJP to make Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, also parties to its pending petition by which it had challenged some controversial state laws regulating conversions due to interfaith marriages.
Before this, on January 6, 2021, the SC had agreed to examine certain controversial new laws of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand regulating religious conversions due to such marriages.
It had, however, not stayed the controversial provisions of the laws and issued notices to both the state governments (Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh) on the petitions.
Since the last hearing of these petitions, both the states of Gujarat and Karnataka have also passed similarly controversial laws.
The pleas, filed by CJP, has challenged the Constitutional validity of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020 and the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act, 2018 which regulate religious conversion of people in interfaith marriages.
CJP had submitted during the last hearing that both Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh should be made parties to its plea as they have also framed laws on the lines of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
The controversial UP ordinance —now an Act— relates to not only interfaith marriages but all religious conversions and lays down elaborate procedures for any person who wishes to convert to another religion.
The Uttarakhand law entails a two-year jail term to any person or persons found guilty of religious conversion through “force or allurement”. The allurement can be in cash, employment, or material benefit.
CJP’s detailed petition questions these laws which curtail the fundamental rights of the citizens of India provided under the Constitution.
The plea said the laws passed by Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand against ‘Love Jihad’ and punishments thereof may be declared ultra vires and null and void because they disturb the basic structure of the Constitution as laid down by the law. It claimed they are against public policy and society at large.
CJP has laid down detailed grounds to show how the legislations violate Articles 21 and 25, as they empower the state to suppress an individual’s personal liberty and the freedom to practice religion of one’s choice. Besides, autonomy and free choice and the non-negotiable right to privacy stand violated. The right to a life without discrimination and with dignity also gets hit with police being empowered, even weaponised to regulate private choices of individuals.
The Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind, in its application filed through advocate Ejaj Maqbool, raises the issue of fundamental rights of the Muslim youth who are being allegedly targeted and demonised by using the impugned ordinance which in itself is unconstitutional being violative of Articles 14, 21 and 25.
Related
Behind one of UP’s biggest ‘anti-conversion’ case; 54 persons booked