The Supreme Court on Tuesday (16 September 2025) asked a petitioner seeking a complete ban on “deceitful” religious conversions who exactly gets to decide if an interfaith marriage is a fraud or not.
Chief Justice of India BR Gavai agreed with senior advocate C.U. Singh, appearing for an NGO challenging the validity of increasingly stringent anti-religious conversion laws across 10 States, that the court’s role was to examine the constitutionality of laws, and not to make them.
Petitioner-advocate Ashwini Upadhyay argued that while one has the right to propagate religion under Article 25 of the Constitution, the right does not extend to conversion through fraud or force.
Highlighting the risk posed to the freedom of conscience enshrined in the Constitution, Chief Justice Gavai asked, “but who would find out that a religious conversion was deceitful or not?”
Singh, appearing in the case along with senior advocate Indira Jaising and advocate Vrinda Grover, submitted that States including Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand, and Karnataka had enacted copycat ‘Freedom of Religion’ Acts, with Rajasthan recently following suit. “The batch of laws are characterised as Freedom of Religion Acts, but they contain everything but freedom. They are virtually anti-conversion laws,” he said.
He sought a stay on these laws, arguing that they were becoming increasingly stringent as courts granted bail and relief to persons accused and arrested under them. The bench scheduled the matter after six weeks to consider the question of staying the implementation of the Acts.
Singh pointed out that recent amendments empowered third parties to file criminal complaints against couples who entered into interfaith marriages. He said punishments under these laws included a “minimum 20-year sentence or a maximum of life imprisonment,” with bail conditions comparable to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. “For anybody who marries inter-faith, bail becomes impossible. These are Constitutional challenges… It is not just marriages but any normal church observances or festivals, mobs may come…” he argued.
Additional Solicitor General K.M. Nataraj opposed the plea, questioning the timing. He noted that the matter was being taken up after three years, “and suddenly they [the petitioners] are asking for stay?”
In 2023, while hearing the case, the Supreme Court had refused to refer the issue of “forcible conversion” as a separate offence under the Indian Penal Code to the Law Commission of India. The government had also opposed the locus standi of the NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace, represented by Singh, to challenge these laws in the apex court.
Singh argued that the legislation amounted to undue interference in a person’s right to choose faith and life partner. He said each State law was used as a “building block” by another to frame an even more “virulent” law. The petitions maintain that such laws have a “chilling effect” on the right to profess and propagate religion under Article 25 of the Constitution.
(With inputs from The Hindu)
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