PRAYAGRAJ: The Uttar Pradesh government has informed the Allahabad high court that it has filed a petition before the apex court seeking transfer of all the writ petitions, which have challenged the recent ordinance against religious conversion, from the HC to the Supreme Court for adjudication.
Additional advocate general, Manish Goyal, representing the state government made this disclosure during the hearing of a bunch of writ petitions against Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020.
Taking this statement, moved on behalf of the additional advocate general on record, a division bench comprising chief justice Govind Mathur and Justice Saurabh Shyam Shamshery said that “in view of the statement so given, we deem it appropriate to adjourn this petition for writ. Let this petition along with other similar petitions be listed for final hearing at this stage on January 25, 2021”. The court passed this order on a PIL filed by one Saurabh Kumar.
It is relevant to mention that the UP government passed the anti-conversion ordinance in November which was challenged through multiple PILs and writs in the high court. The government recently approached the Supreme Court seeking transfer of all pending writ petitions from the Allahabad high court to the apex court.
In addition to it, an application was also filed in the high court on behalf of Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives through its managing trustee Tulika Srivastava to join the writ proceedings.
The court allowed this application for the reasons mentioned therein, saying “The Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives through its Managing Trustee - Tulika Srivastava is allowed to participate in the writ proceedings as an intervenor."
The court further directed the counsel for the intervenor to supply the grounds on which she wanted to support the writ petition to additional advocate general, Manish Goyal.
The court passed this order on January 18.