SC flags constitutional doubts over UP's anti-conversion law

Raising serious questions about the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, the Supreme Courton Friday observed that several provisions of the law may falter under the tests of privacy, proportionality and constitutionality, as it quashed multiple FIRs against officials of a private university accused of illegal conversions.

- Utkarsh Anand

Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra described the statutory procedure for pre-and post-conversion declarations as “onerous” and noted the “conspicuous involvement’ of the state in matters essentially tied to personal faith and privacy.

While clarifying that it was not formally adjudicating the Act's constitutional validity in this case, the bench said those issues could not be left unnoticed while deciding criminal proceedings against the vice-chancellor and director of Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHUATS), who were accused under the 202] law of conducting illegal conversions. The court ultimately quashed several FIRs lodged against the university officials, represented by senior advocate Siddharth Dave, and made extensive observations about the legislative scheme and its interaction with fundamental rights.

The bench warned that the procedure of mandatory state enquiries and public disclosures in conversion cases “introduce a very onerous procedure to be followed by an individual seeking to adopta faith other than the one he professes.”

Itfurther cautioned that allowing strangers to initiate prosecutions would permit criminal law to become “a tool of harassment,” opening the door to frivolous or motivated litigation and diluting guarantees of personal liberty and religious freedom.