'Expected Of High Court To Muster Courage' : Supreme Court Criticises Allahabad HC Over Denial Of Bail In Conversion Case

The Supreme Court today (January 27) castigated the Allahabad High Court for not showing the "courage" to grant bail in a case for unlawful religious conversion. The Court went to the extent of saying that the refusal to grant bail in a case like the present one gave the impression that "altogether different considerations weighed with the presiding officer ignoring the well settled principles of grant of bail."

It further questioned the High Courts for failing to exercise its discretionary power to grant bail in less serious offence where the allegations are yet to be substantiated by conclusive evidence.

“We can understand that the trial court declined bail as trial courts seldom muster the courage of granting bail, be it any offence. However, at least, it was expected of the High Court to muster the courage and exercise its discretion judiciously," the bench observed.

The Court stressed that when the offence alleged is not that grave like murder, dacoity, rape, etc. then the bail applications should not ideally travel up to the Supreme Court.

The observations were made by the bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan while hearing a bail plea of a Maulvi who was arrested under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 over allegations of performing forceful religious conversion of a mentally challenged minor.

The prosecution claimed that the child was forcibly kept at the Madarasa and converted to Islam. These allegations led to charges under Sections 504 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 3 of the 2021 Act.

The appellant-Maulvi contended that the minor, who had been abandoned by his parents, was provided shelter by him purely out of humanitarian concern, without any coercion or religious conversion involved. He sought release on the grounds of having already spent 11 months in custody, the trial still being incomplete, and the prosecution had already examined its witnesses.

The Trial Court as well as the High Court denied bail to the Appellant. Following this, the Appellant-Maulvi appealed to the Supreme Court.

Overturning the High Court's decision, the Court observed:

“We are conscious of the fact that grant of bail is a matter of discretion. But discretion has to be exercised judicially keeping in mind the well settled principles of grant of bail. Discretion does not mean that the judge on his own whims and fancy declines bail saying conversion is something very serious. The petitioner is going to be put to trial and ultimately if the prosecution succeeds in establishing its case, he would be punished.”

The Court expressed displeasure with the working of the trial court judges stating “every year so many conferences, seminars, workshops etc. are held to make the trial judges understand how to exercise their discretion while considering a bail application as if the trial judges do not know the scope of Section 439 of the Cr.P.C. or Section 483 of the BNSS.”

Also, it questioned the High Court for denying bail in the present case noting that it was not expected from the High Court ignoring the well-settled principles of grant of bail.

“At times when the High Court declines bail in the matters of the present type, it gives an impression that altogether different considerations weighed with the presiding officer ignoring the well settled principles of grant of bail.”, the Court observed.

The Court faulted the prosecution for repeatedly protesting against the grant of bail in such cases where the grant of bail would have been granted on appropriate terms and conditions which ultimately led to the filing of appeals to higher courts and the resultant backlog of cases.

“We fail to understand what harm would have befallen on the prosecution if the petitioner would have been released on bail subject to appropriate terms and conditions. This is one of the reasons why the High Courts and now unfortunately the Supreme Court of the country is flooded with bail applications.”, the court said.

The Court allowed the appeal noting that “although the trial is in progress and the prosecution witnesses are being examined yet it is a fit case to order release of the petitioner on bail subject to terms and conditions that the trial court may deem fit to impose.”

Case Title: MAULVI SYED SHAD KAZMI @ MOHD. SHAD VERSUS THE STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH, Petition for Special Leave to Appeal (Crl.) No. 1059/2025

Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 114

Click here to read/download the order

Appearance:

For Petitioner(s) :Mr. K. L. Janjani, AOR Mr. Anil Kumar Pandey, Adv. Mr. Pankaj Kumar Singh, Adv. Mr. Kailash J. Kashyap, Adv.

For Respondent(s) :Ms. Garima Prashad, Sr. Adv., A.A.G. Mr. Ankit Goel, AOR Mr. Harshit Singhal, Adv.

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