Hindu outfit moves SC to intervene in pleas relating to religious conversions

New Delhi, Nov 6 (PTI) The Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti, a Hindu outfit, moved the Supreme Court on Thursday, seeking to intervene in pleas filed against the laws enacted to curb unlawful and forced conversions in several states.

The plea, filed through advocate Atulesh Kumar, challenges the petitions filed against enacted legislations in several states, including the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act, 2018, the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, the Himachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 2019 and the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 2021.

In September, the top court had transferred to itself the petitions pending before various high courts, challenging the controversial laws regulating religious conversion upon inter-faith marriages, which also contain stringent provisions for bail and prolonged sentences.

The Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti's plea has sought directions that the petitioner be added as a party to the matter and allowed to make written submissions to the court.

The outfit has submitted that the freedom to "propagate" a religion does not confer a right to convert a person and the laws do not forbid voluntary conversion based on free and informed choice.

It has said that the laws only regulate the acts of conversion that are vitiated by force, fraud, allurement, undue influence or a sham marriage.

"The impugned enactments are procedural safeguards narrowly tailored to verify voluntariness and to deter coercion/fraud. They do not impose a prior restraint on bona fide conversion or compel disclosure of faith for any collateral purpose," the plea says.

The Supreme Court had, in 2023, asked the parties challenging the anti-conversion laws of the states to file a common petition for the transfer of the cases from the high courts to the apex court.

It had noted that there were at least five such pleas "before the Allahabad High Court, seven before the Madhya Pradesh High Court, two each before the Gujarat and Jharkhand high courts, three before the Himachal Pradesh High Court and one each before the Karnataka and Uttarakhand high courts".

There were also two separate petitions filed by the states of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, challenging the interim orders of the respective high courts staying certain provisions of their laws on conversion.

The Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind had also moved the apex court against the anti-conversion laws of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and argued that those were enacted to "harass" inter-faith couples and implicate them in criminal cases.

The Muslim body had said the provisions of all the local laws of the five states force a person to disclose his faith and, consequently, invade his privacy. PTI SKM PKS RC