No God, Church, Temple Or Mosque Would Approve Malpractices By Priest/Godmen For Religious Conversion: Allahabad HC Denies Relief To SHUATS Officials

“No God or true Church or Temple or Mosque would approve such type of malpractices. If someone on his own, has chosen to get him converted to a different religion is totally another aspect of the issue. In the instant case prevailing upon a tender mind of a young girl providing gifts, clothing and other physical amenities and then asking her to get her baptised is an unpardonable sin,” the bench of Justice Rahul Chaturvedi and Justice Mohd. Azhar Husain Idrisi observed.

The Court made these observations while denying relief to 7 accused including SHUATS VC (Professor Rajendra Bihari Lal) and Director (Vinod Bihari Lal) and other professors. 

As per the FIR, the victim is an alumnus of Allahabad University, who completed her BA in November 2005, during her student days, she met one Rekha Patel (accused no. 2), who used to allure her fellow girls by providing lots of gifts and other articles of their choice to convert them to Christianity.

The FIR, though lodged in November 2023, further stated that the victim belonged to the lower middle class, and was trapped by Patel, who took her regularly to the church. The FIR also stated that she was regularly subjected to sexual exploitation by the accused/petitioners including RB Lal (accused no. 1/VC of SHUATS) and she was persuaded and pressurized to bring women for conversion and other illegal works.

In 2014, she was allegedly baptised and thereafter, she was offered the job as a Stenographer (Hindi) in the Directorate of (HRM&R) SHUATS, however, she was later sacked in the year 2022, after she was found guilty by the internal inquiry committee for cheating a person of 5.5 lacs.

Seeking quashing of the FIR lodged under Sections 328, 376D, 365, 506 IPC, Section 3/5(1) of UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 and Section 5 of Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956, the petitioners-accused argued that the victim was offered a job at SHUATS and she was sacked from her service in the year 2022 and hence, by way of retaliation, she had tailored a story as mentioned in the FIR, just to rope in all the higher officials of SHUATS including the Vice- Chancellor.

At the outset, perusing the content of the FIR, the Court noted that the victim was subjected to mental and physical atrocities by the petitioners and the FIR depicted a “sad saga” of the atrocities faced by the victim, who was trapped by one Rekha Patel to get her converted to Christianity.

“The tender mind of respondent no.4 was brainwashed by the higher priest of the church who persuaded her to adopt Christianity by offering her a job. So that her future would be secure and she would be regularly attending the church,” the Court observed.

Furthermore, the Court found the allegation levelled in the FIR to be “extremely serious and horrifying” as it opined that the accused/petitioners exploited her financial position and allured her to change sides and succeeded and thereafter prevailed upon her.

Besides this, the allegation levelled in the FIR is not only abhorring but distasteful, whereby she has narrated her sad story of sexual exploitation, the Court added.

Against this backdrop, noting that the investigation is at the pre-natal stage, the Court said that it cannot shut its eyes and stall the investigation of the case more so when after reading the FIR a serious cognizable offence is made against the accused petitioners.

“It is only in the cases, where no cognizable offence or offence of any kind is disclosed in the FIR that court would not permit an investigation to go on…At this stage, it would be unjust and improper to stall the investigation by the police. This a brutal and heinous crime against women. It is too far to imagine that for the sake of retaliation, a lady would put her dignity and honour at the stake and make it public, just to falsely implicate the accused petitioners,” the Court remarked as it stressed that for a lady, dignity and honour is a valuable and non-negotiable asset.

However, without making any verdict upon the outcome of the investigation, the Court directed SP Hamirpur to personally supervise the investigation being done by the three senior Police officers of the C.O. rank of Hamirpur with utmost transparency and to objectively conduct an investigation and probe into the matter to its core within 90 days from today, and submit a report under Section 173(2) CrPC. before the concerned Magistrate.

Lastly, emphasizing that the petitioners are accused of a heinous offence, the Court directed that the accused should surrender before the Court on or before 20.12.2023 and apply for regular bail.

With this, the criminal writ petition was disposed of.