Gujarat High Court Refuses To Quash FIR Against Persons Accused Of Converting Around 100 Hindus To Islam

The Gujarat High Court refused to quash FIR filed against multiple accused persons for converting around 100 persons belonging to 37 families from Hindu to Muslim community by alluring them by offering them money and other temptations.

The Bench of Justice Nirzar S. Desai observed, “That looking to the material produced by the applicants themselves in the form of charge-sheet papers, there is ample material to come to a conclusion that prima facie offence is made out coupled with the fact that at no point of time, no relief was granted to the applicants as well as considering the fact that the trial is at the stage of framing of charge and is pending since more than three years and, therefore, looking to the material available on record, which is in the form of statement, Video CD and Panchnama, a prima facie offence is made out against the present applicants and, therefore, this Court may dismiss these petitions.”

Case Brief

A batch of Petitions were filed seeking to quash an FIR for the offences punishable under Sections 120(B), 153(B)(1)(C), 153(A)(1), 295(A), 506(2), 466, 467, 468 and 471 of Indian Penal Code and Section 3(2)(5-A) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and Section 84C of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

It was submitted that various poor Hindu persons were converted by giving temptations and alluring in respect of providing financial aid. The accused persons were alleged to allure the Hindu villagers by giving them the temptation of constructing a new home, food-grain and cash, tempted them to convert to Islam.

It was contended that all these accused three persons have already converted around 100 persons belonging to 37 families from Hindu to Muslim community by alluring them by offering them money and other temptation. It was also alleged that this was a nation wide conspiracy to convert Hindus to Muslims and the same was going on on account of huge financial aid received by them from foreign countries.

Therefore, the applicants preferred these petitions for quashing of the FIR and charge-sheet.

Court’s Observation

At the outset, the High Court emphasised that there was no requirement to minutely look at all the material available by way of charge-sheet papers as in a petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. The question before the Court was whether a prima facie offence was made out by looking at the material or not.

The Court said, “That looking to the material produced by the applicants themselves in the form of charge-sheet papers, there is ample material to come to a conclusion that prima facie offence is made out coupled with the fact that at no point of time, no relief was granted to the applicants as well as considering the fact that the trial is at the stage of framing of charge and is pending since more than three years and, therefore, looking to the material available on record, which is in the form of statement, Video CD and Panchnama, a prima facie offence is made out against the present applicants and, therefore, this Court may dismiss these petitions.”

The Court opined that unless the accused persons could provide their innocence by leading evidence, it cannot be said that no case was made out against them as the charge-sheet was filed having ample material against the applicants. The Court also highlighted that the burden to prove innocence was upon the accused persons.

The Court noted that some of the accused persons, who were also converted to Islam, cannot be treated as victims of conversion as they influenced, pressured and allured other persons to convert to Islam.

“However, considering the fact that after their conversion to Islam, it is alleged that those persons also indulged into activity of pressurizing and alluring other persons as alleged in the FIR and as can be seen from the papers available on record, it is their further act of converting further people around 100 in numbers of 37 families to Islam would prima facie make out an offence against them and, therefore, I do not see any reason to interfere with the trial”, the Court added.

Accordingly, the High Court refused to quash the FIR against the accused persons as a prima facie case was made out against the

Cause Title: Varyava Abdul Vahab Mahmood V. State Of Gujarat & Anr

Appearance:

Applicant: Senior Advocate I. H. Syed, Advocates Anik Kadri MTM Hakim, Isa Hakim

Respondent: Advocates Mitesh Amin, Hardik A. Dave, Ronak Raval, Trupesh Kathiriya, Senior Advocate Maulin Raval, Advocates Harshash Kakkad, Ruchika Kakkad, Yogini Parikh, Yash J. Patel, R. C. Kodekar, Parthiv A. Bhatt and Maharshi Patel

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