New Delhi: The Supreme Court on January 3 observed that all religious conversions cannot be presumed by a State to be illegal while agreeing to hear a Madhya Pradesh government appeal against a High Court decision freezing a mandatory provision requiring a person who desires to convert to another faith to give 60 days’ prior intimation to the local District Magistrate.
Supreme Court agrees to hear Madhya Pradesh Government’s plea against High Court order.
A Bench led by Justice M.R. Shah issued notice but refused to order an interim stay of the High Court order even as Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for Madhya Pradesh, argued that “conversion in the country is based on marriage”.
The provision under question is Section 10 of the Madhya Pradesh (Freedom of Religion) Act, 2021. Section 10(1) and (2) of the Act mandated that a person who desires to convert and a priest/person who intends to organise a conversion, respectively, should give a two-month prior declaration to the District Magistrate that the proposed change of religious faith is not motivated by force, undue influence, coercion or allurement. A person who wants to organise a conversion and refuses to give such a declaration would suffer penal consequences, which include imprisonment of three to five years and costs of not less than ₹50,000.
Mr. Mehta said, conversion largely happened in the country by marrying a person of another faith. The provision did not ban inter-faith marriage but only acted as a safeguard against forcible or illegal conversion.
Verghese V Joseph – Bengaluru: Reacting to the passage of the contentious “anti-conversion bill” in the Karnataka Legislative Council on Thursday, the Metropolitan Archbishop Peter Machado, the Bishops of Karnataka and all the Christian Leaders are contemplating a legal recourse to challenge the Act in its totality. The bill was…
By Team ICM - Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Pema Khandu on Thursday said the four-decade-old law against conversions may be repealed adding that it could “undermine secularism”. The state had passed the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act in 1978, becoming the third state in the country after Odisha (1967)…
By Isaac Gomes - Article 30 - Minority Educational Institution Cannot Claim Exemption from Admission & Fee Regulatory Committee: Supreme Court Source: LiveLaw 17 March 2023 Case Title: Icon Education Society vs State of Madhya Pradesh On 17th March 2023, the Supreme Court of India held that a minority educational…
Verghese V Joseph – Bengaluru: Reacting to the passage of the contentious “anti-conversion bill” in the Karnataka Legislative Council on Thursday, the Metropolitan Archbishop Peter Machado, the Bishops of Karnataka and all the Christian Leaders are contemplating a legal recourse to challenge the Act in its totality. The bill was…
By Team ICM - Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Pema Khandu on Thursday said the four-decade-old law against conversions may be repealed adding that it could “undermine secularism”. The state had passed the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act in 1978, becoming the third state in the country after Odisha (1967)…
By Isaac Gomes - Article 30 - Minority Educational Institution Cannot Claim Exemption from Admission & Fee Regulatory Committee: Supreme Court Source: LiveLaw 17 March 2023 Case Title: Icon Education Society vs State of Madhya Pradesh On 17th March 2023, the Supreme Court of India held that a minority educational…
