LUCKNOW: The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has barred Amethi police from taking any coercive action against an interfaith couple in a three-year-old case now being investigated under the newly promulgated UP Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance 2020.
The bench of Justices R R Awasthi and Saroj Yadav issued the order while hearing a petition filed by one Chandani and her husband, seeking relief in the face of alleged police harassment on the basis of a 2017 FIR filed by her father. The FIR, lodged at Kamrauli police station of Amethi district under Sections 363 and 366 of the IPC, accuses the woman's husband of kidnapping her for forced matrimony.
The petitioners' lawyer, A K Pandey, said that the couple married three years ago of their own will and were now parents to a one-and-a-half-year-old child.
Directing the state government's counsel to file a response to the petition within a week from Wednesday, the bench said that the case should be listed for hearing thereafter. "Considering the entire aspect of the matter, it is hereby provided that till the next date of listing, the petitioners shall not be harassed by the police on the basis of the impugned FIR."