CJI-led Bench to now hear pleas against forcible religious conversions

The cause list for Monday shows that the matter is listed along with petitions challenging laws against religions conversions in different states before the CJI-led Bench, which also comprises Justices P S Narasimha and J B Pardiwala.

The Bench of Justices Shah and C T Ravikumar had earlier rejected objections to the maintainability of the petition filed by Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay. Terming forced religious conversions a “serious issue”, the court had on the last date of hearing on January 9 sought the assistance of Attorney General R Venkataramani.

The court on that day also cautioned the counsel appearing for Tamil Nadu, who denied there was any forced fraudulent conversions happening in the state and urged the Bench to leave the matter to the legislature. The counsel contended that the petitioner was a BJP member and alleged that the plea was politically motivated.

Justice Shah rebuked him saying it had already decided to examine the issue. “You may have different reasons to be agitated like this. Don’t convert court proceedings into other things…We are not concerned with A state or B state. We are concerned for the entire country… If it is happening in your state, it is bad. If not, good. Do not see it as targeting one state. Do not make it political,” he told the counsel.