New Delhi: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on January 2 a batch of pleas challenging controversial state laws regulating religious conversions due to interfaith marriage. A bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha is scheduled to hear the PILs filed by advocate Vishal Thakre and an NGO 'Citizens for Justice and Peace'.
The Supreme Court will also hear a plea by Muslim body 'Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind' which it had allowed last year to become a party to the petitions as it claimed a large number of Muslims are being harassed under these laws across the country. As per the office report uploaded on the apex court website, so far no reply has been filed by the Centre or any of the states which have been made parties to the litigation.
On February 17, 2021, the top court had permitted the NGO to make Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh the parties to its pending petition by which it had challenged some controversial state laws regulating conversions due to interfaith marriages. The apex court had on January 6, 2021 agreed to examine certain controversial new laws of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand regulating religious conversions due to such marriages.
It had, however, refused to stay the controversial provisions of the laws and issued notices to both the state governments (Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh) on the petitions. The pleas, filed by Thakre and the NGO, have challenged the Constitutional validity of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020 and the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act, 2018 which regulate religious conversion of people in interfaith marriages.