New Delhi: Centre on Monday told the Supreme Court that the right to freedom of religion does not include a fundamental right to convert other people to a particular religion.
The central government in its affidavit filed on a PIL claiming that fraudulent and deceitful religious conversion is rampant across the country and said that it is “cognizant of the gravity and the seriousness”.
Such issue of conversion shall be “taken up in all seriousness by the Union of India and appropriate steps shall be taken as the Central government is cognizant of the menace”, the Centre said in its affidavit.
Centre further added that “The right to freedom of religion certainly does not include the right to convert an individual through fraud, deception, coercion, allurement or other such means,”.
The affidavit further pointed out that nine states including Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, and Haryana already have legislation in place seeking to curb this practice.
The affidavit stated that “such enactments are necessary for protecting cherished rights of vulnerable sections of the society including women and economically and socially backward classes.”
As the matter came up for hearing, a bench headed by Justice MR Shah said the issue of forced religious conversion is “very serious” and asked the Centre to file a detailed affidavit to make its stand clear.
It asked the Centre to file an affidavit with instructions from the State governments. The bench has now posted the matter for hearing on December 5.
(With Agency Inputs)
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