New Delhi:The Supreme Court bench led by the Chief Justice of India, SA Bobde, issued notice to the states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttrakhand on petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020 and Uttrakhand Freedom of Religion Act, 2018, respectively. The court, however, refused to stay them and just sought responses from the state.
The bench also comprising Justice AS Bopanna and Justice V Ramasubramanian was hearing a petition filed by Advocates Vishal Thakre, Abhay Singh Yadav and Law PhD student Pranvesh. They had contended that the ordinance passed in the name of "Love Jihad" is against the basic structure of the constitution, curtails the fundamental rights of the citizens and puts innocent citizens at risk of being harassed.
"Because, this ordinance can become a potent tool in the hands of bad elements of the society to use this ordinance to falsely implicate anyone in this ordinance and there are probabilities of falsely implicating persons who are not involved in any such acts and it will be a grave injustice if this ordinance is passed," read the plea.
Today the petitioners submitted before the court that if a person happens to marry a person from other community, it invites trouble, the accused has to show the proof which is not possible and innocent people are suffering. "Prior permission to get married is absolutely obnoxious my lords," argued the advocate appearing for petitioners.
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CJI Bobde said that they understand all the problems but the issue is that people come directly to the Supreme Court under Article 32 instead of approaching the High Court first. We are not saying that you have a bad case but you should be approaching the High court first then come here, added CJI.
However, the petitioners convinced the court to entertain the petition and court issued a notice on the plea.
