Right to freedom of religion does not include right to convert others: Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday denied bail to an accused in a case of alleged illegal conversion, observing that the right to freedom of conscience and religion cannot be construed as the right to conversion. [Shriniwas Rav Nayak v. State of UP].Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal opined that the Constitution of India permits citizens the right to profess, practice and propagate their religion, but does not allow conversion of religion.“The Constitution confers on each individual the fundamental right to profess, practice and propagate his religion. However, the individual right to freedom of conscience and religion cannot be extended to construe a collective right to proselytize; the right to religious freedom belongs equally to the person converting and the individual sought to be converted,” the Court said..The Court had made similar observations in an order passed on July 1.“If this process is allowed to be carried out, the majority population of this country would be in minority one day, and such religious congregation should be immediately stopped where the conversion is taking place and changing religion of citizen of India," the Court had said in respect of conversions..The Court reiterated the observations in its order passed on July 9 while dealing with a bail plea moved by Shriniwas Rav Nayak, a resident of Andhra Pradesh, in a case registered by the police under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.According to the prosecution, the informant had been invited to the house of a co-accused in February this year. He is stated to have seen many other people there, mostly belonging to the Scheduled Caste community.The accused persons had allegedly asked the informant to leave the Hindu religion and accept Christianity so that “all his pain would come to end and he would progress in life.“The informant had run away fromt the place and informed the police, leading to the registration of the case. .Counsel representing Nayak submitted that he had no connection with the alleged mass conversion as he was merely a domestic help from Andhra Pradesh working at the house of one of the co-accused.It was also submitted that the First Information Report (FIR) does not mention the presence of any ‘religion converter’ as defined under Section 2(1)(i) of the anti-conversion law.However, the State said that Nayak had actively participated in the conversion and that a case was made out against him..Considering the arguments and the material on record, the Court noted that the 2021 law clearly prohibits conversion from one religion to another religion on the basis of misrepresentation, force, fraud, undue influence, coercion and allurement.Further perusing the Article 25 of the Constitution, the Court said,“The Constitution clearly envisages and permits its citizens right to freedom of religion in respect to their professing, practising and propagating its religion. It does not allow or permit any citizen to convert any citizen from one religion to another religion.”.In this backdrop, the Court found that the villagers had been allured and misrepresented to convert to Christianity.On the argument that no ‘religion converter’ was present on spot, the Court said the 2021 law does not provide that a ‘religion converter’ should be present when the conversion takes place.“In the instant case, the informant was persuaded to convert to another religion, which is prima facie sufficient to decline bail to the applicant as it establishes that a conversion programme was going on where many villagers belonging to Scheduled Castes community were being converted from Hindu religion to Christianity,” it added..Advocates Patsy David, Sanju Lata and Saurabh Pandey represented the accused.Advocate Sunil Kumar represented the State..[Read Order]