The Supreme Court agrees to hear PIL oppose the amendment of laws on religious conversion

The Supreme Court agreed to consider challenging the constitutional effectiveness of UP law. document

On May 2, 2025 (May 2, 2025), the Supreme Court agreed to consider questioning the constitutional effectiveness of the Uttar Pradesh law revised in 2024 for the “illegal religious conversion”.

The substitutes of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices Sanjay Kumar and KV Viswanathan show that the submission of senior lawyer Muralidhar said they said that certain provisions of Uttar Pradesh ban on illegal religious conversion were revised in 2024, which was “ambiguous” and “ambiguous”.

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However, the CJI did not issue a notice within the allowed time and said it will be heard along with other pending petitions on May 13.

The Supreme Court is hearing the PIL proposed by Roop Rekha Verma, the latter from Lucknow, while others oppose the amended law.

Through a request made by advocate Purnima Krishna, alleging violations of Article 14 (Equality before the law), 19 (freedom of freedom of expression and expression), 21 (right to life and freedom of individuals) and 25 (freedom of religion) (freedom of religion).

It claims that Sections 2 and 3 of the Act are “vague, too broad and lack of clear standards”, which makes it difficult to determine what constitutes a crime.

“This ambiguity infringes upon freedom of speech and religious dissemination, achieving arbitrary enforcement and discriminatory application. Criminal law must be accurate; vague provisions violate constitutional principles, violate constitutional principles, fail to grant reasonable notice to the authorities, fail to provide reasonable notice, and risk false prosecution of innocent individuals.”

It added that this ambiguity opens the door to arbitrary law enforcement and discriminatory practices, especially for individuals seeking practice or spreading their beliefs.

The request further stated that criminal law must be defined precisely to prevent abuse by the authorities and to avoid false prosecution of innocent citizens.

The key issue it said is that the 2024 amendment expands the category of individuals authorized to file complaints without inclusion in procedural safeguards.

It said: “The law assumes that all religious conversions are based on the malice behind and believes that adults have suspicious persons, thereby reducing them to subjects who must be verified by the state.”

The request challenged the proportionality of the prescribed punishment, which was “excessive”, “the government encroached on individuals’ right to choose their beliefs by taking on the role of religious identity protectors.”

It said that while there is no substantive evidence of wrongdoing, the lack of procedural safeguards has allowed the defendant and his family to prolong the legal struggle, financial burden and social stigma.

It added: “This approach ignores criminal law that must be clear, accurate and restrictive to the crimes to prevent unlawful action from being brought.”

The request said, referring to Article 5 of the law, that all women are wrongly assumed that all women are vulnerable to illegal conversion, thereby strengthening harmful stereotypes and thus undermining their autonomy.

“This gender-based presumption contradicts the constitutional principle. Furthermore, the act erodes the basic presumption of innocence, by imposing a reverse; proving burden, unfairly transferring responsibility to the defendant and increasing the risk of being wrongly convicted, thus violating procedural fairness in criminal law,” Plea argued. ”

The Supreme Court seized on various petitions to challenge the effectiveness of various state laws in religious conversion.