Anti-conversion laws in states: Centre opposes transfer of pleas to SC, says HCs must hear first

The SC is seized of a batch of petitions, including one by activist Teesta Setalvad’s NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace, challenging the laws against religious conversion passed by the states of Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh.

“You file a petition there and get another petition filed here, get them transferred here, I may have some serious objections,” the AG told the bench, which also comprised Justices P S Narasimha and J B Pardiwala.

The bench told the AG it will hear his objections and listed the matters for hearing on February 3.

The Centre, meanwhile, has questioned the NGO’s locus standi to file the petition. In a brief affidavit, the government alleged that the NGO “deliberately undertakes, and consciously and surreptitiously espouses, divisive politics in an attempt to divide the society on religious and communal lines.

“Similar activities of the petitioner organisation are also found in other states. Presently this activity is going on in the State of Assam,” the affidavit read, adding that the NGO is “guilty of collecting huge funds exploiting the agonies of riot affected people for which criminal proceedings are going on against Ms Teesta Setalvad and other office bearers of the petitioner.”

“It is settled position of law that the background and credentials of a petitioner would be relevant for a court to decide whether to entrust such a petitioner with a writ of the constitutional court or to decide whether to invoke the jurisdiction vested in the highest constitutional court at the behest of the petitioner whose credentials are in a serious doubt,” the affidavit read.

It said that the “the petitioner…purports to act in public interest in which it selectively takes up public causes for the objects and intents other than public interest”.

The centre added that the prayers raised in the CJP petition are similar to those in the other petitions and that the SC could as well look into those other petitions.