CJI asks for pleas challenging conversion laws be merged before transfer to SC

Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud on Monday advised petitioners to compile petitions challenging religious conversion laws in various states and transfer them to the Supreme Court (SC). The petitions were filed before Allahabad High Court, Karnataka High Court, Uttarakhand HC, Gujarat HC and Madhya Pradesh HC. Justice DY Chandrachud's advisc came as the SC was hearing a batch of petitions that challenged the conversion laws in the said states.

The next hearing has been scheduled for January 30. Earlier this month, the bench headed by Justice Chandrachud said it will soon take a call on whether the petitions before High Courts should be transferred to the apex court.

Last week, the SC sought the assistance of Attorney General R Venkataramani on a plea seeking direction to the Centre and states to take stringent steps to control fraudulent religious conversions. It even said that forced religious conversion is a serious issue and it should not be given a political colour.

CJI Chandrachud, in the hearing on January 16, also asked senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who represented the petitioners, to come up with one single petition over the matter so that all states can be included at once. Senior advocate Arvind Datar, on the other hand, said, "We are seeking to have the law commission examine provision of IPC which does not make conversion by allurement or unlawful inducement". Highlighting that there is no provision in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to deal with forced religious conversion, he said carrying out forced conversion by giving people gifts and allurement is a 'problem'.

Supreme Court's concerns over forced religious conversions

While the SC demands urgent and strict action from Centre and states on forced religious conversions, it is also witnessing petitions challenging anti-conversion laws. For instance, the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind in early January moved the SC challenging anti-conversion laws of UP, MP, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, saying they have been enacted to "harass" interfaith couples and implicate them in criminal cases.

Meanwhile, cases of conversion keep springing up from various states in the country, the latest being from Maharashtra's Pune. A video recently surfaced from Pune’s Alandi where a woman allegedly being converted to Christianity was served red grape juice as 'blood of Jesus'. In late December, arrests were made in UP and Uttarakhand of people allegedly operating a mass conversion racket.