SC to examine validity of interfaith marriage laws

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to stay the Uttrakhand and Uttar Pradesh laws regulating inter-faith marriages and conversion while issuing notice in two pleas challenging the validity of the laws.

Refusing to stay the laws, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde said it can’t decide which provisions of the two laws were oppressive unless it hears the state governments concerned.

The Uttar Pradesh government has promulgated an ordinance regulating inter-faith marriages and religious conversions and a similar was enacted by the Uttrakhand in 2018.

When advocate Pradeep Kumar Yadav pointed out that the BJP governments in Madhya Pradesh and Haryana were also bringing laws on the lines of the UP ordinance and society is affected, the CJI said the court would not expand the petitions’ scope.

The bench, also comprising Justice A.S. Bopanna and Justice V Ramasubramanian, however, agreed to examine the validity of the ordinance and the laws. The court was hearing petitions, one by Delhi-based lawyer Vishal Thakre and the another by Mumbai-based NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP), challenging the constitutional validity of the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religious Ordinance, 2020, and the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act, 2018.

The petitions under Article 32 stated that the two laws were violative of Articles 21 and 25 as they empower the state to suppress an individual’s liberty and the freedom to practice religion of one’s choice.