Supreme Court: Permitting Initiation Of Criminal Proceedings Under U.P. Conversion Act At Instance Of Strangers Dilutes Freedom Of Religion

The Supreme Court observed that permitting initiation of criminal proceedings under Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 (U.P. Conversion Act), at the instance of strangers dilutes the freedom of religion.

The Court held thus in a batch of Writ Petitions and Criminal Appeals concerning six FIRs filed under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) and the U.P. Conversion Act.

The two-Judge Bench comprising Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra observed, “To permit the initiation of criminal proceedings at the instance of strangers or unrelated third parties would amount to an impermissible intrusion into this protected sphere of individual freedom and would open the door to frivolous or motivated litigations, thereby diluting the constitutional guarantees of personal liberty and freedom of religion. As discussed above, this Court in Shafin Jahan (supra) underscored that the right to choose a faith or partner is intrinsic to the dignity and autonomy of the individual.”

The Bench remarked that the freedom to profess, practice, or propagate religion, and concomitantly the liberty to renounce or embrace a faith of one’s choice, is a facet of the fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 21 and 25 of the Constitution respectively and this liberty lies in the innermost domain of human conscience and decisional autonomy.

Senior Advocates Siddharth Dave, Mukta Gupta, Siddharth Agarwal, Rebecca John, C.U. Singh, and AOR Vairawan A.S. appeared on behalf of the Petitioners/Appellants, while Attorney General (AG) R. Venkataramani appeared on behalf of the Respondents.

Facts of the Case

In the lead case, an FIR was registered based on a written complaint filed by the Vice President of the organisation Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), for the offence punishable under Sections 153-A, 506, 420, 467, and 468 of the IPC respectively and Sections 3 and 5(1) of the U.P. Conversion Act respectively, against 35 named and 20 unknown accused persons. The said FIR pertained to an alleged event of mass religious conversion which according to the complaint, allegedly took place at the Evangelical Church of India, Hariharganj, Fatehpur in the year 2022, which happened to be “Maundy Thursday”, a day of religious significance for the followers of Christ.

It was alleged that the accused persons were found engaged in the ceremony of religious conversion of around 90 persons belonging to the Hindu community at the Evangelical Church by the use of force, cheating, fraud, and coercion. Thereafter, many other FIRs were registered in respect of the same. Being aggrieved by this, the accused persons filed Writ Petitions before the High Court, seeking quashing of FIRs. However, the High Court declined to entertain the same. Hence, the case was before the Apex Court.

Reasoning

The Supreme Court in view of the facts and circumstances of the case, noted, “… where the High Court is satisfied that the process of any court is being abused or likely to be abused or that the ends of justice would not be secured, it is not only empowered but also obligated under the law to exercise its inherent powers. The provision does not confer any new power on the High Court but rather saves the power which the High Court already possesses, from before the enactment of the legislation, by reason of its very existence. In exercise of its power, it would be legitimate for the High Court to quash any criminal proceedings, if the High Court finds that the initiation or continuation of it may lead to abuse of process of court, and quashing of the proceedings would serve the ends of justice.”

The Court said that the U.P. Conversion Act, being a special legislation, has prescribed certain special procedural norms as distinguished from the Criminal Procedure Code. It further reiterated that the intention of the legislature should be construed from the plain text of the statute, and if the plain interpretation does not result into any absurdity or is not unworkable, then the Courts should not depart from the meaning which is manifest from the plain text.

"It is only in cases where the text does not speak for itself, or more than one interpretation is possible, that the courts should resort to tools of statutory interpretation. In the case in hand, the words employed by the legislature in the unamended Section 4 of the U.P. Conversion Act are abundantly indicative of the intent of the legislature to only allow a certain specified category of persons to make a complaint for the violation of Section 3 of the said Act. Thus, we find no good reason to take the view that despite being a special legislation, Section 154 of the Cr.P.C. should be given primacy over Section 4 of the U.P. Conversion Act”, it added.

The Court refused to accept the AG’s submission that Section 4 is a mere declaration and not a contradiction from the general scheme of Section 154 of the CrPC for the simple reason that when the legislature has enacted special and more stringent provisions as regards other aspects covered by the said legislation, then a clause restricting the scope of initiation of prosecution under the same enactment cannot be casually construed as a mere surplusage.

“The specific declaration in Section 4 cannot be understood as a mere procedural nicety but has to be given its intended meaning to ensure that it fits in with the overall scheme of prosecution provided under the said legislation”, it observed.

The Court elucidated that the initiation of prosecution for the alleged offence of illegal religious conversion stands circumscribed and may be set in motion only at the behest of the aggrieved individual or, in the alternative, by his or her immediate family members or blood relatives.

“The legislature, in its wisdom, has consciously circumscribed the locus standi for instituting proceedings, recognising that only the person whose faith is directly in question, or those standing in proximate familial relation, are in a position to determine whether the act of conversion is the result of free volition or whether it bears the taint of coercion, fraud, or allurement. An unrelated third party, having no direct nexus with the individual concerned, is neither competent nor legitimately placed to assess the voluntariness of such a decision”, it also noted.

The Court added that the statutory limitation on who may initiate proceedings strikes a balance by ensuring that genuine grievances of those subjected to unlawful conversion are redressed, while simultaneously safeguarding the autonomy, dignity, and liberty of individuals from unwarranted intrusion and misuse of criminal process under the pretext of protecting religious freedom by persons masquerading as custodians of religion prodded by oblique motivations.

“We are at a loss to understand as to how such religious gathering could be found to be in contravention to the provisions of the law, when no direct attempt to allure or induce with a view to cause conversion could be traced”, it asked.

Conclusion

Furthermore, the Court remarked that the criminal law cannot be allowed to be made a tool of harassment of innocent persons, allowing prosecuting agencies to initiate prosecution at their whims and fancy, on the basis of completely incredulous material.

“… the difficulty by getting persons with vested interests to make complaints regarding the same alleged incident after a considerable delay and thereafter initiate a fresh round of investigation against largely the same set of accused persons. Unfortunately, this is the only impression which the material on record has left on us”, it concluded.

Accordingly, the Apex Court allowed the Petitions/Appeals and quashed the FIRs.

Cause Title- Rajendra Bihari Lal and Another v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 1249)

Appearance:

Petitioners/Appellants: Senior Advocates Siddharth Dave, Mukta Gupta, Siddharth Agarwal, Rebecca John, C.U. Singh, AORs Vairawan A.S., Vikash Chandra Shukla, Dhiraj Abraham Philip, Pallavi Sharma, Purnima Krishna, Advocates Vairawan A.S., Payoshi Roy, Siddhartha, S. Prabu Ramasubramanian, Bharathimohan M., Bharathimohan M, V. Swetha, V. Swetha, Aishvary Vikram, Lakshya Siddheshwar Pandey, Isha Barshiliya, Manish Gandhi, Febin Mathew Varghese, Nitya Gupta, Namrata Mohapatra, Achalika Ahuja, Jemtiben A.O., Sanbha Rumnong, M.F. Philip, Lija Merin John, Karamveer Singh Yadav, and Togin M. Babichen.

Respondents: AG R. Venkataramani, AORs Adarsh Upadhyay, Nidhi, Advocates Divyanshu Sahay, Amit Singh, Aman Pathak, Ajay Prajapati, Ameyavikrama Thanvi, Oorjasvi Goswami, Kartikay Aggarwal, Pallavi Kumari, and Shashank Pachauri.

Click here to read/download the Judgment