The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted a notice to the government of Uttar Pradesh in a similar matter where a petition was filed, which questioned the constitutional validity of some of the sections of the newly revised Act named Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2024. A bench headed by Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta gave the state government a notice, holding the plea alongside other pending petitions on the lines elsewhere.
Filed by an academician, Roop Rekha Verma of Lucknow, and others, the petition claims that the amendments to the law in 2024 were unconstitutional. Through counsel Purnima Krishna, the petitioners argue that certain portions of the new amended law, especially Sections 2 and 3, are vague, broad, and bereft of well-defined standards of law. The plea says that such ambiguity breaches some important fundamental rights enshrined in Articles 14, 19, 21, and 25 of the Indian Constitution, such as the right to equality, the right to speak freely, the right to personal liberty, and the right to worship.
It has also been brought out by the petitioners that the amendments made in 2024, namely, in contrast to the initial law, give far too much discretionary power to authorities, and threaten arbitrary application and abuse. They argue that the legislation, as it stands today, creates a loophole that upholds practices of discrimination, especially against those who would want to worship or expand their religious beliefs.
The plea adds that the laws governing penalties should be very specific. General legal terms do not give an individual reasonable warning, as well as augment the likelihood of falsely charging a person, which acts as a contravention of the tenets of the Constitution.
Even though the legal counsel representing the state observed that the legal debates on the general law are already pending before a bench led by the Chief Justice of India, the petitioners made it clear that their petition is against the 2024 amendments. The Supreme Court had previously agreed to hear the issue on 2 May and has formally listed it among the cases to be heard.
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