SC quashes multiple FIRs under UP Act on religious conversion, says law not tool to harass innocent

New Delhi, Oct 17 (PTI) Observing that criminal law cannot be a tool to harass innocent citizens, the Supreme Court on Friday quashed several FIRS registered at Fatehpur district of Uttar Pradesh over alleged offence of "mass religious conversions" of Hindus into Christianity.

In a significant judgment on invocation of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, a bench comprising justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra quashed as many as five FIRs against several persons including Rajendra Bihari Lal, vice chancellor of Uttar Pradesh's Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHUATS).

Justice Pardiwala, who authored a 158-page judgement, found that the FIRs were vitiated by legal infirmities, procedural lapses, and lack of credible material, and ruled that continuing such prosecutions would amount to a "travesty of justice".

"The criminal law cannot be allowed to be made a tool of harassment of innocent persons, allowing prosecuting agencies to initiate prosecution at their whims and fancy, on the basis of completely incredulous material...," the verdict said while referring to "glaring infirmities" in registration of one of the FIRs lodged in 2022.

Referring to the facts of one of the FIRs, the verdict said, "It was not open to the police to overcome the difficulty by getting persons with vested interests to make complaints regarding the same alleged incident after a considerable delay and thereafter initiate a fresh round of investigation against largely the same set of accused persons. Unfortunately, this is the only impression which the material on record has left on us." The bench rejected the submissions that the FIRs should not be quashed by the top court while exercising its power under Article 32 (right to move SC for enforcement of fundamental rights) under the Constitution.

"This court, as the highest constitutional court, has been conferred with the powers as enshrined under Part III of the Constitution to provide remedies against the violation of fundamental rights. The very fact that the right to constitutional remedies has itself been enshrined as a fundamental right is a clear affirmation that this court is the ultimate guarantor of their enforcement.

"Once the Constitution has cast such a responsibility upon it, this Court need not direct a petitioner to pursue an alternative remedy, when the grievance stems from the alleged violation of a fundamental right," it said, adding the extraordinary facts demanded that the FIR be quashed.

It dealt in detail the facts of each FIR and pointed out the glaring deficiency including that no victim of conversion approached the police with the complaint.

However, the bench ordered detagging of the pleas related to one of the six FIRs on the ground that it pertained to some other offences for fresh adjudication and made clear that interim protection granted to the accused earlier shall continue till the matter is finally decided.

Referring to judgments, it said, "where the HC is satisfied that the process of any court is being abused or likely to be abused or that the ends of justice would not be secured, it is not only empowered but also obligated under the law to exercise its inherent powers..." The bench, however, said that the UP law, being a special legislation, has prescribed certain special procedural norms as distinguished from the CrPC.

"It is a settled position of law that the intention of the legislature should be construed from the plain text of the statute, and if the plain interpretation does not result into any absurdity or is not unworkable, then the courts should not depart from the meaning which is manifest from the plain text," it said.

Dealing with the veracity of statements of witnesses, it said, "neither the witnesses underwent unlawful religious conversion, nor were they present at the place of the alleged mass conversion dated April 14, 2022." Referring to a judgement, the court quashed an FIR observing that the "existence of multiple FIRs for the same alleged incident stamps an abuse of investigative powers".

The bench stated that repeated registration of FIRs in respect of the same occurrence "undermines the fairness of the investigative process and exposes the accused to unwarranted harassment".

The petitions concerned six FIRs lodged between December 2021 and January 2023 under various provisions of the IPC and the UP law.

One of the FIRs was registered on April 15, 2022 at Kotwali police station of Fatehpur district on the basis of a complaint of one Himanshu Dixit, the Vice President of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, against 35 named and 20 unknown persons alleging that an event 90 Hindus were converted to Christianity at the Evangelical Church of India a day before, which happened to be "Maundy Thursday", a day of religious significance for Christians.

It was alleged that Hindus were put under undue influence, coercion, and lured through fraud and the promise of easy money.

The cases against concerned offences under sections 307 (attempt to murder), 504 (intentional insult with an aim to provoke breach of peace) and 386 (extortion) of the IPC. The accused were also booked under the anti-conversion law. PTI SJK ZMN