Saints, pujaris body move SC in support of anti-conversion laws

NEW DELHI: Akhil Bhartiya Sant Samiti, which claims to represent 127 sects of Sanathan Dharma, moved Supreme Court on Thursday in support of anti-conversion laws framed by different states and whose validity has come under court's scanner.

Seeking intervention in the ongoing litigation on a batch of petitions challenging the laws passed by Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, the body filed its application through advocate Atulesh Kumar and supported the laws. It contended that the freedom to propagate religion does not confer a right to convert another person and the freedom of conscience of the prospective convert is equally protected.

It said the state laws do not forbid voluntary conversion based on free and informed choice and they narrowly regulate only those acts of conversion that are vitiated by force, fraud, allurement, undue influence or sham marriage.

"It is submitted that even if propagation is treated as part of religious practice, still proselytisation achieved through force, fraud, coercion, undue influence, allurement or sham marriage cannot be asserted as an essential or integral religious practice. It is further submitted that such practices militate against the basic ethos of the Constitution- dignity, equality, freedom of conscience, and public order-- and offend the founding civilisational principles of mutual respect and non-compulsion in matters of faith. Activities that impair another's freedom of conscience or threaten public order are amenable to regulation, and the State is duty bound to do the same. Accordingly, the impugned statutes do not trench upon core religious tenets but only interdict impermissible means, leaving voluntary, informed choice untouched," the petition said.

"The impugned statutes are religion-neutral and content-neutral measures of general application that protect freedom of conscience rather than target any creed. They neither proscribe voluntary conversion nor criminalise inter-faith marriage per se; they address only conversions vitiated by defined wrongful means or marriages undertaken solely as an instrumentality for such conversion. The provisions are precisely framed to incorporate appropriate men's rea and graded penalties, and are coupled with procedural safeguards (verification/hearing by designated authorities)," it said.

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