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The Supreme Court Wednesday issued notice in a plea challenging the Ordinances passed by two states of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh for the unlawful conversion of religion for purposes of marriage.

Chief Justice of India SA Bobde led bench however, refused to stay the laws.

"The plea has sought the kind of relief that this court ought never to entertain under Article 32 even if it is justified, whether a particular prosecution is oppressive, false or untenable..." said the CJI.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted before the bench that the laws are pending adjudication before High Courts. 

Senior Advocate CU Singh appearing for the petitioner insisted that the laws be stayed on account of prior permission to marry which is stipulated under the laws. "The prior permission to marry is something which is obnoxious," he added.

The Senior Counsel then cited the Hadiya Marriage Case [Shafin Jahan V. Ashokan K.M.] in which the court had assessed that the allegation that Hadiya was deceived into marrying her husband Mr. Shafin Jahan and forcibly converted to Islam. He added that the practice of giving one month prior notice to the magistrate where you ordinarily reside before marriage was untenable in law. "These provisions are absolutely horrible," he said.

The petition challenges ordinances passed by the State of Uttarakhand and State of Uttar Pradesh (namely, Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020 and The Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act, 2018) after the Uttar Pradesh State Law Commission, in its report submitted before the Chief Minister, a year ago, had proposed such a law in the state citing rising incidents of forced religious conversions or conversions through fraudulent ways.

Impugned Ordinance was promulgated in the backdrop of statements issued by the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh adding that his Government was working to bring a strict law to curb incidents of “love jihad”.

The petitioners have contended before Top Court that these ordinances violate the Fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 19 & 21, “supressing an individual’s personal liberty”, and disturbs the basic structure of the Constitution of India, which was held by the Hon’ble Supreme Court time to time in a catena of Judgements, in specially in the matter of I.C. Golak Nath v State of Punjab AIR 1967 SC 1943 which is one of the landmark cases in the Indian legal history.

The petitioners challenge these ordinances on the grounds that the government by passing these ordinances, have brought injustice to the persons/citizens who had done nothing wrong but still have to face the consequences.

"It will create a fear in the society who is/are not part of Love Jihad, however, can be falsely implicated because these ordinances can become a vigorous tool in the hands of bad elements of the society to falsely implicate anyone under these ordinances. It will be against the Public Policy and will harm the public by creating turmoil and disruptive situations in the society," the plea has stated.

The petitioners have thus prayed before the Hon’ble Court to issue a direction to the government not to give effect to the ordinances/provisions and modify the bill as the court deems fit.

Following the issuance of notice by the top court in the case, an organisation by the name of Jamit-Ulama-I-Hind has filed an impleadment application before the Supreme Court in this case. It has been filed by Advocate Ejaz Maqbool. This is yet to come up before the court.

Case Title: Vishal Thakre & Ors. V. Union of India

Returnable within 4 weeks.