UP: Allahabad High Court stays arrest of man booked under anti-conversion law

LUCKNOW: The Allahabad High Court on Friday stayed the arrest of a person named Nadeem who was booked under the newly-promulgated UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religious Ordinance-2020, in Muzaffarnagar on November 30.

The ordinance was promulgated on November 28, 2020.

A division bench, comprising Justice Pankaj Naqvi and Justice Vivek Agarwal, asked the UP Police not to take any coercive action against the accused. The bench also tagged the case to another division bench, comprising Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice Piyush Agarwal, which is seized of the matter in
response to a PIL challenging the vires of the ordinance.

The division bench comprising Justice Naqvi and Justice Agarwal was hearing a criminal writ petition filed for the first time against the ordinance by an affected party.

In fact, Nadeem and his accomplice Suleman were booked under the anti-conversion law on the complaint of one Akshay Kumar in Muzaffarnagar on November 30. They were accused of trying to force a married Hindu woman to convert. Both were booked under the new law as well as criminal intimidation and criminal conspiracy.

Nadeem, through his lawyer SFA Naqvi, approached the High Court claiming that the ordinance was in conflict with the court's latest pronouncement in “Salamat Ansari and others Vs Union of India & others” holding that the "right to live with a person of his/her choice irrespective of religion professed by them, is
intrinsic to the right to life and personal liberty."

The judgment in the Salamat Ansari case was passed by the bench of Justice Naqvi and Justice Agarwal.

The petitioner had claimed in his submission that the ordinance was a 'fraud' on the Constitution and contrary to Article 19, 21, 25, and 26 enshrined therein. The petitioner had said in his plea that through the ordinance, an atmosphere of fear and terror was created among the persons who wanted to marry a person of another religion or caste. He has also claimed in his plea that the ordinance was also against the spirit of the Special Marriage Act 1954.

While the FIR against the petitioner claimed that he had developed an illicit relationship with the wife of the complainant with an intent to convert her religion either by threat or exerting undue pressure, Nadeem, claiming himself to be a poor labourer, said in his plea that he was falsely implicated by the complainant just to avoid payment of some dues which the complainant owed to him.

The petitioner also pointed out that initially he was booked only under IPC and later the sections 3 and 5 of the new ordinance were 'mischievously added" in the FIR against him.