'Religious Gatherings Or Charity Not Offences Under UP Conversion Act' : Supreme Court Quashes Cases Against SHUATS University VC

The Supreme Court has quashed multiple FIRs registered in Uttar Pradesh against Dr. Rajendra Bihari Lal, Vice-Chancellor of Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHUATS), and several other university officials, holding that the proceedings were based on “completely incredulous material” and amounted to an abuse of criminal process.A Bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra delivered the ruling in a batch of appeals arising from criminal proceedings lodged in various police stations of Uttar Pradesh under the U.P. Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, along with IPC offences.In the judgment, the Court noted that one FIR was legally barred as it was not lodged by a victim. As per the UP Act, as it stood then, only victims(or their relatives) could have lodged an FIR. Further, the other FIRs were found to be repetitions of the allegations. The witness statements were found to be mechanically reproduced ("cyclostyled"), with even mistakes in the names of the deponents getting repeated across statements. Also, the witness statements only showed instances of religious gatherings and Bible preaching, with no allegation of unlawful conversion. The Court said that neither the UP Act nor the IPC made religious gatherings or charity work an offence. In this backdrop, the Court quashed the FIRs, observing "criminal law cannot be allowed to be made a tool of harassment of innocent persons, allowing prosecuting agencies to initiate prosecution at their whims and fancy, on the basis of completely incredulous material."Background of FIRsThe first FIR, FIR 224/2022, was lodged at Kotwali Police Station in Fatehpur District, on 15.04.2022. alleging that a mass conversion of 90 persons took place on Maundy Thursday at the Evangelical Church of India. The complainant was one Himanshu Dixit, the Vice President of Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The Court noted that the complainant was a victim of alleged illegal conversion and was a third party.The second FIR, FIR 47/2023, was lodged at Kotwali PS on 20.01.2023, by one Sarvendra Vikram Singh who alleged that he was allured into embracing Christianity by the accused persons with offers of cash, a job with a university and marriage with a beautiful girl.The third FIR, FIR 54/2023, was lodged at the same police station on 23.01.2023 with respect to allegations of mass conversion on Maundy Thursday in 2022.The fourth FIR, FIR 55/2023, was lodged at the same police station within 7 minutes of FIR 54/2023, with the same allegations.The fifth FIR, FIR No. 60/2023, lodged for the very same offences and at the very same police station, reproducing allegations made in FIR Nos. 54/2023 and 55/2023The sixth FIR, FIR No. 538/2023, lodged at the PS Nawabganj, District Prayagraj, on 11.12.2023, alleging that the accused persons threatened the complainant, fired a shot at him, demanded money from him and were performing illegal conversion acts by offering a cure to diseases.Court's findingsThe Supreme Court noted that FIR 224/22 was not sustainable as it was lodged at the instance of a third party and not the alleged victim. As per Section 4 of the UP Act, before its amendment in 2024, only a victim or their spouse or relatives could lodge the FIR.The Court rejected the argument of Attorney General for India R Venkataramani that the general law under CrPC should prevail over the UP Act so as to allow FIRs by third parties. The Court held that the special law will prevail. The Court further observed that the bar against third party complaints was a legislative safeguard to weed out vexatious complaints by busybodies.Materials woefully inadequate to substantiate the allegationsThe Court also took note of the materials collected by the investigating agency and found them to be woefully inadequate. It noted that the witness statements were mechanically reproduced, and the errors in one statement were duplicated in others as well. Even errors in names of the witnesses were mechanically duplicated. For example, the statement of one Sanjay Singh said that his name in the Aadhaar card was changed from "Rajesh Kumar Dwivedi” to "Rajesh Kumar Samson”. Another witness named Pramod Kumar Dixit also stated that his name was forcefully changed from "Rajesh Kumar Dwivedi” to "Rajesh Kumar Samson”. Also, the witnesses never underwent unlwaful conversion nor were present at the site of the alleged site of conversion.The Court said that the evidence in the form of videos etc, showed only the instances of religious gatherings. "We do not find from a reading of the U.P. Conversion Act that organization of religious gatherings or doing charity work in the name of religion has also been made a criminal offence. No provision in the IPC prohibits such activities too. No irregularity in the funding of the organization from international sources has been pointed out. More so, in case of any such irregularity, a number of provisions of the relevant legislations...

'Religious Gatherings Or Charity Not Offences Under UP Conversion Act' : Supreme Court Quashes Cases Against SHUATS University VC

LIVELAW NEWS NETWORK

The Court noted that the witness statements were 'cyclostyled' and only showed religious gatherings and not illegal conversions.

Tags