Supreme Court throws out Uttar Pradesh anti-conversion cases as ‘harassment’

The court said the police reports were marred by ‘legal flaws, procedural errors, and lacked credible evidence’, and continuing such prosecutions would amount to a ‘travesty of justice’.

India’s Supreme Court quashed several police reports alleging the mass conversion of Hindus to Christianity in Uttar Pradesh state, citing legal flaws.

“Criminal law cannot be allowed to be made a tool of harassment of innocent persons on the basis of completely incredulous material,” the court observed, dismissing first information reports (FIRs) concerning the vice-chancellor and other officials of the Christian-run Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHUATS) in Fatehpur district.

An FIR is an initial written document prepared by the police to record information about an alleged criminal offence. These FIRs were filed for various offences under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act 2021, and under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.

On 17 October, Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra ruled that the cases failed to meet the legal threshold for prosecution. The FIRs were marred by “legal flaws, procedural errors, and lacked credible evidence”, and continuing such prosecutions would amount to a “travesty of justice”, Justice Pardiwala said.

“The liberty to renounce or embrace a faith of one’s choice lies in the innermost domain of human conscience and decisional autonomy. Criminal law cannot intrude into this space except in strict compliance with the statutory framework.”

The court also directed the continuation of interim protection for those facing proceedings under the IPC.

Siju Thomas, national director of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) India, a branch of the international Christian advocacy organisation, said the ruling strengthened the constitutional promise of religious freedom.

Thomas said the case related to a Maundy Thursday service held in Fatehpur on 14 April 2022 that was disrupted by a crowd that accused senior doctors and medical professionals, university staff members, pastors, believers and students – including a twelve-year-old child – of proselytising. They were arrested and charged under anti-conversion laws. The accused included the SHUATS Vice Chancellor Rajendra Bihari Lal.

Police filed many FIRs from April 2022 to January 2023, as Himanshu Dixit, a leader at the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (or world council of Hindus), alleged that around 90 Hindus were being “forcibly converted” through “fraud, inducement and coercion”.

However, the court found “substantial inconsistencies” and “duplication” in the FIRs. It said the complainant was not an aggrieved person or their immediate family member. Complaint by a third party is contrary to law.

Questioning the reliability of the witness statements, the court deemed that neither were the witnesses proselytised nor were they present at the place of alleged mass conversions on 14 April 2022.

The Supreme Court said that the Allahabad High Court committed a grave error in declining to quash these cases. The 2021 Uttar Pradesh law criminalises conversion by force, fraud or inducement, with a sentence of up to 10 years in prison for offences.

Thomas said the pastor-in-charge of the of the Evangelical Church of India in Fatehpur and his family faced threats, hostility and atrocities while the case was proceeding. For more than three years, they endured stigma, fear, and prolonged legal battles, but would feel reassured by the ruling, Thomas said.

However, he warned that 12 states have passed anti-conversion laws and another – Maharashtra – is threatening to introduce a more stringent law. Thomas said he hoped for a favourable verdict in another petition in which the Supreme Court has asked the states for a reply as to why a stay should not be granted on these anti-conversion laws while their constitutionality is under review.

Several Church leaders spoke out against the Maharashtra proposals. Bishop Savio Fernandes, an auxiliary in the Archdiocese of Bombay, said the constitution guarantees “every Indian the freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practice, and propagate one’s religion, including voluntary conversion”. He added that punishing individuals who change faiths of their own free will “erodes citizens’ fundamental rights, reducing religion from a matter of personal conscience into one of state control”.

Catholic theologian Virginia Saldanha pointed out: “Maharashtra has long been a state where religions are freely practised and communities live in harmony, which should be nurtured.”

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