No intent of bringing central anti-conversion law: Union govt tells Lok Sabha

The Union government is not forming a central law to check “unlawful” or forced religious conversions for inter-faith marriages, the Lok Sabha was informed on Tuesday. In a reply to an unstarred question, Minister of State for Home Affairs, G Kishan Reddy, said that “public order” and “police” are state subjects, and so, there will be no central government law on the subject. 

“Hence prevention, detection, registration, investigation and prosecution of offences related to religious conversions are primarily the concerns of the state governments and union territory administrations. Action is taken as per existing laws by the law enforcing agencies whenever instances of violation come to notice,” the minister said. 

It may be noted that the Supreme Court is currently scrutinising the provisions anti-conversion laws and ordinances that are being criticised for targeting inter-faith marriages passed in some BJP-ruled states like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The laws have clauses like requirements for a judge to sign-off on a planned conversion drawn up prior to the wedding between couples, and are being justified by some politicians such as UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath as actions to curb “love jihad”.

A bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde had agreed to examine the validity of legislations, namely the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020 and the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act, 2018, based on a plea by petitioners Vishal Thakre and others, and NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace.

However, the apex court did not stay the laws on January 6 when the matter came up. The bench, also comprising Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, replied that it would have been ideal if the petitioners had moved their respective high courts instead of coming to the apex court. The Chief Justice said the challenge to the law is already pending in high courts and asked the petitioners to go there. "We are not saying you have a bad case, but approach the high court in the first instance, instead of coming here", observed the bench.

Senior advocate CU Singh, representing one of the petitioners, submitted that it is obnoxious to put the burden of proof on the married couple to establish that the motivation for the marriage is not conversion. Singh cited that several incidents have come on record where mobs have disrupted inter-faith marriages and also cited the severe punishment under these laws. Another counsel for a petitioner cited that similar legislation is in the making in Haryana, Karnataka and Assam.

Singh alleged that several innocent persons had been arrested based under the UP ordinance against “love jihad”. He cited that the offence under this law has a sentence of up to 10 years and it is also non-bailable offence. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that the Allahabad High Court is already seized of the matter.