New Delhi: In a marked shift from its previous orders, the Allahabad High Court this week granted protection to 12 interfaith couples in live-in relationships in Uttar Pradesh, ruling that the 2021 anti-conversion law does not prohibit interfaith marriages or relationships.
“In these cases, no FIR or complaint has been lodged against any person that religion of one petitioner was converted or attempted to be converted,” a single-judge bench of Justice Vivek Kumar Singh said in a 40-page order.
Moreover, all parties continued to follow their respective religions, the court noted.
Therefore, the court stated that the parties who approached the court for protection had not violated the provisions of the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.
Section 4 of the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 Act allows anyone to file an FIR if its provisions are violated.
Sections 3 and 5 of the act prohibit unlawful conversion by misrepresentation, force, fraud, undue influence, coercion or allurement.
The court said that conversion means renouncing one’s own religion and adopting another, while emphasising that no conversion had taken place in this case.
It allowed the parties to approach the police for redressal of their grievances if any harm was caused to them.
It also directed the police to examine the matter and the age of the petitioners on receiving such complaints.
“If they (police) find any substance in the allegations they will act in accordance with law for protection of life, limb and liberty of the petitioners,” the court said.
The ruling came on a batch of petitions by 12 interfaith couples, saying that they were facing constant interference from family and society, but the police took no action, prompting them to approach the Allahabad High Court.
They said they fell in love and decided to live together. Of the 12 couples, seven women were Muslim residing with Hindu men, while five women were Hindu living with Muslim men.
The court also noted that the right to choose a partner falls under the ambit of the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
It said that if the law permits two people of the same sex to live together peacefully, then neither any individual nor a family or even the UP government can object to a consensual heterosexual relationship.
Any such objection would amount to encroaching upon the parties’ right to life and personal liberty, including their right to freedom of choice and the right to live with dignity under Article 21, it noted.
“Right to choose a partner irrespective of caste, creed or religion, is inhered under right to life and personal liberty, an integral part of the Fundamental Right under Article 21 of the Constitution of India,” the court noted.
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UP govt’s stand
In the current case, the UP government argued that there was no immediate threat to the life or property of the petitioners and the apprehensions being shared with the court were vague, speculative and unsupported by any complaint to the local police authorities.
The UP government argued that the application submitted to the police authorities does not specify any time, date or incident. It added that its obligation to protect arises only when “no unlawful act” has been committed by the petitioners, and when there is a credible and immediate threat.
The court rejected the UP government’s reliance on Sections 3 and 5 of the 2021 act, which prohibit unlawful conversion by misrepresentation, force, fraud, undue influence, coercion or allurement. These sections impose a prison sentence of three to 10 years for violations of the anti-conversion law.
The court said that two ingredients needed to be established for these offences. First, there must be a conversion from one religion to another. Secondly, the conversion should be due to misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement, by any fraudulent means, or by marriage or a relationship like marriage.
The UP government also argued that the judgements they were citing were insufficient since these judgments were passed before the 2021 act.
Allahabad HC’s diverging views
The latest judgement was in contrast with a 2023 division bench ruling in the Kiran Rawat vs State of UP case, which held that Muslims were not allowed to live-in with their partners, let alone their interfaith partners. It also denied police protection to a Hindu-Muslim couple who were facing threats to their life.
The 2023 ruling also said that sex outside marriage or premarital sex was punishable in the Quran with a hundred lashes.
“The punishment for such offence according to Quran (chapter 24) is hundred lashes for the unmarried male and female who commit fornication together with the punishment prescribed by the ‘Sunnah’ for the married male and female that is stoning to death,” the court had said.
However, in the present case, the court ruled that since there is no provision in the Indian Penal Code or any other law in the country that allows stoning one to death, a person cannot be punished according to Muslim Law, which has been quoted in Kiran Rawat.
The Allahabad High Court’s stance on granting protection to interfaith couples has varied in different cases.
In the Kiran Rawat case, for instance, protection was denied, while in the 2021 Vaishnvi Vilas Shirshikar vs. State of UP case, the court granted relief to a batch of 17 people in interfaith marriages, observing that each individual has the right to choose their partner.
The inconsistency was also seen in the Allahabad High Court’s 2023 ruling in Razia vs. State of UP, in which a single-judge bench allowed protection to a Hindu-Muslim couple in an interfaith live-in relationship.
Another 2024 single-judge bench order by the high court said that the law was settled on the right of married couples to live peacefully without interference, citing the 2006 Supreme Court ruling in Lata Singh vs. State of UP.
Coincidentally, the Allahabad High Court cited the same 2006 ruling last year to deny protection to a runaway couple in Shreya Kesarwani’s case, stating that such protection could not be claimed by couples as a “matter of right”.
The Shreya Kesarwani case was about a runaway couple who sought police protection and direction to restrain their family members from interfering in their married life.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)